SOUTH KOREA --  US-South Korean joint military exercises began on March 25 amid North Korean and international opposition.

               The exercises, dubbed Reception, Staging, Onward movement and Integration (RSOI) and Foal Eagle, involve 29,000 US soldiers and an undisclosed number of South Korean troops and are scheduled to continue until Saturday, March 31, according to reports by Korea.net, the official Website of the Republic of Korea (ROK), a.k.a. South Korea, and the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), a.k.a. North Korea.   The USS Ronald Reagan, the US's newest nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, according to Korea.net, a squadron of F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter jets, and a Stryker platoon from Hawaii are participating in the RSOI exercises.    The RSOI was first held in 1994 and, according to a March 15 Korea.net article, "aims to hone the combined Korean and US forces' ability to receive and integrate forces from bases outside the country in case of conflict in Korea," an obvious allusion to the (albeit remote) possibility of war with the DPRK.   The two Koreas have been in an official state of war since the start of the Korean War (1950-53).   The armistice ending the war was a cease fire, not a peace treaty; while the US and the DPRK signed it, the ROK did not.   About 29,000 US soldiers are stationed in the ROK; US troops have been present in the South since Korea's liberation from Japanese rule in 1945, with the exception of one year (1949-50).   The Soviet Union occupied the North from 1945 until 1948.   Chinese troops were stationed in the DPRK from 1950 to 1958, but no foreign soldiers have been present since then.   The RSOI and Foal Eagle are the successors to the joint US-ROK annual Team Spirit military exercises, which were suspended in 1992.

         It may not be a coincidence that the US and the ROK are conducting the joint exercises during the increasingly tense six-party talks involving the two Koreas, the US, the People's Republic of China, the Russian Federation, and Japan.   Though the parties reached an agreement on February 13 to work toward the normalization of inter-Korean and DPRK-US relations, and the DPRK announced the beginning of the shutdown of its main nuclear issue, the negotiations snagged over the issue of a DPRK bank account in Macao.   The DPRK walked out of the talks in protest of the US's treatment of the issue.   On March 26, the KCNA called for Japan's disqualification from the talks because of its hostility to the DPRK.

         Also on March 26, the KCNA quoted an unnamed writer for Rodong Sinmun, the official publication of the ruling Workers' Party of (North) Korea (WPK), denouncing RSOI and Foal Eagle.

         "The United States has hurled into these war games stealth fighter-bombers which earned ill fame in armed invasions and wars of aggression against other countries in the past, and the taks force of an ultra-modern super large nuclear-powered carrier," the KCNA quoted the Rodong Sinmun analyst.  "This is a highly dangerous act of a nuclear war to mount a nuclear attack on the DPRK at any moment...It is an open contract that the U.S. has rounded off detailed war scenarios against the DPRK such as 'OPLAN-5027'..."

         The quote continued, "Now is the time when each side should be more prudent than any other time in all its behavior and, especially, be most circumspect in military actions, and make special efforts to boost the atmosphere of dialogue and mutual trust.   The massive war games launched by the U.S. bellicose forces against the DPRK cannot be construed otherwise than a criminal artifice to spoil the atmosphere of dialogue, check the progress of the six-party talks and the implementation of the agreed articles, push the DPRK out of the conference room by getting on its nerves and find a pretext for a war against it.   It is the invariable stand and principle of the DPRK to answer good faith with good faith and strength with strength."

      The Anti-Imperialist National Democratic Front's (AINDF) National Reunfication Committee,  also denounced the RSOI.  The AINDF is a pro-DPRK South Korean group.  In an open letter to its supporters dated March 14, the National Reunfication Committee wrote, "The staging of such large-scale war drills against North Korea by the US imperialists and the South Korean authorities despite the repeated condemnation and opposition of the entire Korean people and the world('s) peace-loving people is an extremely dangerous military provocation that would chill the current dialogue atmosphere, do harm to the inter-Korean relations and drive the situation of the Korean peninsula to (the) brink of war...Now that the Korean people and the world('s) peace-loving people are giving their support and attention to the successful outcome of the six-party talks and the North-South ministerial talks, the madcap project of the US and South Korean authorities to launch the provocative war exercises is an uncouth act leveling the gun at their dialogue partner [the DPRK] and an anachronistic behavior turning back the mood of reconciliation..."

         The committee continued, "We strongly demand that if the US sincerely wants a détente, peace and improved relations it stops at once the aggressive-natured military exercises and withdraw(s) all its aggression troops and and killing tools from South Korea without delay.  If the South Korean authorities actually seek the improvement of the inter-Korean relations and the peace and reunification of the Korean peninsula, they, too, should halt the joint military drills with outside forces forthwith."

         The committee encouraged people to distribute petitions and write letters to US and ROK government officials protesting the exercises.   

         John Paul Cupp, chair of the Songun Politics Study Group USA and the US Solidarity Committee to Support the AINDF and the South Korean People's Struggle and a member of the editorial board of the online journal Red Banner of Songun, has posted online a petition to US President George W. Bush protesting the RSOI and Foal Eagle.   The petition reads in part, "We condemn the RSOI aggressive exercises aimed at threatening the DPRK...How can the rational mind accept that the US imperialists are serious about 'dialogue' and 'normalization of relations' with the DPRK while it [they] engages in such actions?  This shows the hypocrisy of the US side and violates the spirit of the February 13th agreement.   Clearly the US has not fully abandoned any hope of stifling by force the independent Juche socialist system of the DPRK."

            Juche, which means national self-reliance and holds that the masses have the highest importance in the world and are the masters of the revolution and socialist construction, is the DPRK's official ideology.

            "The South Korean authorities' participation in such an endeavor violates the June 15th, 2000, reunification accords [signed by DPRK leader Kim Jong Il and then ROK President Kim Dae Jung (no relation)] and spirit of peaceful reunification of Korea, for which the Korean people of all walks of life (have) struggled so hard and long to achieve," the petition continues.  "We call on the US and ROK authorities to put an immediate end to the RSOI provocations, the needless actions which threaten all of east Asia and the world.   Furthermore, we the progressive organization(s) and personages of the world demand that the US...develop normalized relations with the DPRK, and reaffirm our unwavering solidarity with the DPRK under the brilliant tutelage of H.E. (His Excellency) Marshal Kim Jong Il."

         The petition is available at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/738025614.  As of this writing, it bears 20 signatures; the goal is 1,000.