Insight into a totalitarian, seditious mindset: What was said and applauded at a pro-North Korean, anti-American conference in New York
The opening ceremony of the People’s Summit for Korea (Still image: Courtesy of BreakThrough News)
Given the ambitious title of the event, observers would have expected speakers at the “People’s Summit for Korea” in New York City last month to come out with the usual euphemisms that pro-North Korean, communist, and pro-terrorist front groups employ to win over idealistic audiences.
Instead, participants were treated to an edifying expression of the true beliefs of the speakers and organizations involved. The event was full of overt expressions of hatred for and determination to destroy the U.S., the ROK, and Israel, along with enthusiastic praise for North Korea and endorsement of its Juche ideology.
Indeed, such provocative calls for communist revolution and destruction of the U.S. approached outright sedition.
The master of ceremonies, Simon Ma of Nodutdol, a northern California doctor, set the tone with his opening remarks. North Korea’s “long history of socialist revolution is full of struggles, victories, and lessons that should inform our revolutionary work both locally and internationally,” he said. “Despite brutal U.S. aggression through the Korean War, economic sanctions, and racist propaganda, the Korean revolution continues.”
“Western bourgeois media twists the realities (of North Korea’s) prudent defense policies (with) lies after lies,” he said.
“Genocidal imperialist sanctions are killing thousands of Korean children,” he said, adding that Washington tries to make people believe that the people of North Korea are “oppressed” whereas North Koreans are, in fact, “our revolutionary comrades, full of love.”
Pyongyang is “a guiding light for the international socialist revolution,” Ma said.
He explained that the event’s purpose was to “prepare our movement to challenge U.S. impunity” in the event of war, although he did not specify what types of actions he had in mind. He concluded by expressing his hope that the event would assist attendees “in advocating for the DPRK’s fight against U.S. imperialism.”
Next up was Marxist-Leninist Manolo De Los Santos, the founder and leader of The People’s Forum, a key element of radical, Shanghai-based billionaire Neville Roy Singham’s political influence and funding network, which is under congressional investigation for its alleged ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
This connection to Singham’s network perhaps explains how the organizers funded such a large and presumably very costly multi-day conference. Media reports indicate that Singham has given millions of dollars to The People’s Forum, which has held joint pro-North Korea events with Nodutdol. De Los Santos said that the Korean people “yearn to be free from the terror of the American empire.”
Next was Miyeon Jang, also of Nodutdol, who asserted that Koreans who have migrated to the U.S. have no reason whatsoever to be grateful to their adopted country, because “U.S. imperialism requires our mothers to work multiple jobs while raising a household.”
“U.S. imperialism requires our communities to face disproportionate rates of addiction and alcoholism,” she said, adding that Americans are “exploited to serve the very empire who dares to treat our homeland as a launch pad for their next war on China.”
She ended by imploring her comrades not to “sit quietly in the empire’s belly” and threatening that she and Nodutdol were organizing across the U.S. to “create consequences for the U.S. empire and building towards our inevitable socialist future.” Again, she did not specify what consequences she had in mind.
Jamie Tyberg of Nodutdol moderated a discussion during which she said that the most important task is to help people become conscious that the enemy is U.S. imperialism. It is engaged in “the military encirclement of China (and seeks to) to portray China as a threat to nations around it, as well as to the people of the world, through mass propaganda.”
Like New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, Tyberg has been a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.
The communist Workers World Party was represented by Sara Flounders, an activist with the party since the early 1970s. A supporter of North Korea, she claimed that U.S. military bases “dominate political life” in South Korea. She also mentioned U.S. military bases in Taiwan even though none exist.
Flounders won applause when she claimed that the U.S. created “artificial famine and disease” in North Korea, and when she praised Hamas for the tunnel network it built using aid intended for civilians. She also lauded Iran’s missile attacks on Israeli cities.
“Through seven decades, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has held the line, has pursued socialist development and self-reliance,” she said. “The spirit of Juche has won out.” She emphasized that it was important to oppose “the demonization of the DPRK and its socialist construction.”
Flounders’ final words, which the audience enthusiastically applauded, were “Death to U.S. imperialism! Death! Death to U.S. imperialism!”
U.S. “narratives around the DPRK are oriented towards advancing imperialism,” longtime Nodutdol member Betsy Yoon said.
Yoon lauded the regime’s “steadfast commitment” to its people. “The revolution is not something you do during the day and escape from at home, but is instead something that is woven into the fabric of society. Love is part of the revolution,” she said.
She called on the audience to oppose the “constant ideological onslaught that we are immersed in here from birth to death (with) solid grounding in revolutionary theory.”
To build a new society “out of the ashes of capitalism,” it is important to “learn from societies that have already done so,” she said. “We need to travel to North Korea and build relationships and connections (and) recognize and internalize the lessons of North Korea’s ongoing revolution.”
She ended by quoting Lenin, “We are fighting better than our fathers did, our children will fight better than we do, and they will be victorious.”
One of the more long-winded speakers was the dedicated Marxist-Leninist Brian Becker, who was a member of the Workers World Party from the early 1970s but left in 2004 to lead the communist Party for Socialism and Liberation and its front group ANSWER. Like Nodutdol, Becker’s party was one of the key organizers of the event and is also among the groups being investigated by Congress for alleged ties to the Singham funding and connections to the Chinese Communist Party.
“One of the problems that we face in the United States is the non-stop demonization and caricaturing of the DPRK,” he claimed. Anyone who speaks about “peace” with North Korea is accused of being a “foreign agent,” he said. Apparently referring to the recent NK Insider article about the conference, Becker angrily stated that, “Even this conference is being smeared by right-wing, anti-communist media.”
He said of North Korea and Cuba that “real freedom, not simply formal equality, required that their countries take a socialist path.” To the applause of the audience, he added that “what happens here in the belly of the beast, in the center of imperialism, would make all the difference in the world for the people yearning to breathe free, for those yearning to take the socialist path.”
Answering a question from Simon Ma about the “essential” need for pro-North activists in the U.S. “to continue to fight and advocate for the DPRK against U.S. imperialism,” in light of North Korea’s unification policy shifts, Becker called for “a massive public education campaign for the broad U.S. public” about North Korea. He also said the U.S. should establish diplomatic relations with the North.
Ma then accused the media of portraying North Koreans as “demons” who “deserve to be slaughtered.”
Yoon said it was a myth that the North’s regime was repressing its people, and that North Korea actually “wanted to have an informed populace.” She urged the audience to adhere to North Korea’s state ideology, insisting that “we creatively apply our Juche spirit.”
The session concluded with Becker promoting “the Leninist concept of the professional revolutionary,” which drew applause.
Ju-hyun Park, a dogmatic Marxist-Leninist member of Nodutdol who praises terrorist attacks on Israel, said about the Korean War that although “Korea was the first place that U.S. imperialism faced a major setback, we were not the first people to resist the monster that we call the United States. What the Korean War proved was not just that the imperialists do not have a conscience, but it also proved that they are not invincible.”
“The last two years of the Zionist genocide in Gaza have shown there is no atrocity that is too inhumane for imperialism,” he added.
Park praised North Korea’s founding dictator, Kim Il-sung, which the audience applauded, and urged a communist revolution against the “bourgeoisie” in the ROK. “We are not going to defeat U.S. imperialism only by removing U.S. troops,” he said. “That means we have to understand that not everyone who is Korean is our friend. The Korean capitalists and their politicians who do the bidding of imperialism are not our friends.”
“We can bring the struggle for national liberation here, right at the doorstep of imperialism, right where the enemy is most comfortable by bringing resistance to their home, and by organizing with our class for revolution in this country,” he said, without specifying the resistance he had in mind.
Adding a Maoist and Stalinist perspective was Mick Kelly, a founding leader of the communist Freedom Road Socialist Organization, who is no stranger to controversy. His home was raided by the FBI in 2010 based on suspicions that he was providing material aid to terrorist organizations.
“Sooner, not later, every inch of Korean soil will be liberated,” Kelly said. “We have common enemies and we have a common interest in seeing them wiped out.” Kelly also spoke of the “great unfinished business of the Chinese revolution which is Taiwan” claiming that it would be settled “sooner rather than later.”
Kelly concluded with a claim that the Korean War was in fact a war waged by the U.S. on the people of Korea. “There actually was a resistance to that war in the United States,” he said, repeating hoary propaganda claims that the U.S. used germ warfare and that American prisoners of war were “treated well.”
In closing the conference, the convening organizations declared in a statement that, “In the North, our people have met the daily challenges of U.S. aggression with unwavering unity and a steadfast commitment to their sovereignty.”
“Korea’s liberation is not a question of if, but when,” the statement said.
It included a condemnation of the “genocide in Palestine, the attacks on Iran, and the intensifying aggression against the People’s Republic of China.”
“The Republic of Korea must transform from a U.S. outpost into a sovereign force that stands in fraternity with the DPRK,” the statement said, adding that the ruling class in the South will not make this transformation.
The statement emphasized that U.S. imperialism is the “greatest threat to Korea and all of humanity,” and urged the audience to engage in “organized resistance” and participate in a “national day of action” on August 15. The conference organizers pledged to “bring the fight for national liberation into the belly of the beast alongside the working masses who will be the gravediggers of this empire.” The speakers and audience then chanted, in Korean, “Drive out America! Drive out America!”
As with other gatherings of communists and their fellow travelers, just like party congresses in the former Soviet Union, China, North Korea, or Cuba, the People’s Summit for Korea culminated with the speakers and audience singing the communist anthem “The Internationale.”
Lawrence Peck is a correspondent for NK Insider based in Seoul and Los Angeles. Having intensively researched and closely monitored the activities of pro-North Korea and other extremist groups and activists in the U.S. for over 25 years, he has been recognized in the U.S. and Korea as one of the leading American authorities on such topics, and has lectured, written extensively and been interviewed on such topics in the U.S. and Korea. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and a Juris Doctor degree from Loyola Law School of Los Angeles. He previously worked in Korea for several of the largest Korean business groups in the fields of intellectual property licensing and international business development. He also serves as an advisor to the North Korea Freedom Coalition of the U.S. Lawrence may be reached at the email address: lawrence.nkinsider@gmail.com
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