Unity is the key to all victories.
This is the truth taught by history.
The Korean people, who have been suffering from the 60-odd-year-long national division forced by outsiders put up overall national unity as the basic way to reunify the country.
The June 15 North-South Joint Declaration and the October 4 Declaration for Development of North-South Relations and Peace and Prosperity, common reunification program of the Korean nation, imply the idea of great national unity based on the idea of “By Our Nation Itself”.
For the homogeneous Korean nation overall national unity means reunification, and reunification leads to national prosperity.
To achieve national unity is not an easy task but the Koreans have a proud tradition of unity that was established during the anti-Japanese war.
In his early days President Kim Il Sung said that every Korean should join efforts in the fight against the Japanese. In the early 1930s he had put forward the idea of overall national unity.
His idea meant whoever loves the nation and wants the country’s liberation should knit together under the anti-Japanese banner, transcending the differences in ideology, political view and creed and the property status.
The birth of the Association for the Restoration of the Fatherland, a nationwide united front organization, on May 5, 1936 had made the idea a brilliant reality.
At the time some people thought that it was impossible to organize a united front body as there was neither a political party nor a legitimate organization in
He said that they could form a united front organization if they had the grass roots and hard-core members and they should rally the people with an identity of their purpose and desire as the main principle.
The formation of the ARF was a full demonstration of great national unity that put an end to the bitter history of the Korean nation that met the tragedy of national ruin owing to the factional strife of feudal rulers and experienced setbacks and frustration in the anti-Japanese struggle due to interfactional disputes.
Throughout the anti-Japanese war the ARF served as the center that had rallied all the anti-Japanese forces into a single force on the basis of Kim Il Sung’s idea of overall national unity.
Keenly attracted by the ten-point program of the ARF, a lot of wealthy people and religious leaders took an active part in the struggle against the Japanese imperialists. These good examples bore testimony to the validity and vitality of the birth of the ARF.
The idea of overall national unity and exploits performed by Kim Il Sung in the battlefields of anti-Japanese war are being carried forward in the present reunification movement.
Leader Kim Jong Il defined the ten-point program of the great unity of the whole nation for the reunification of the country, a complete whole of the President’s idea of great national unity, as one of the three charters for national reunification and has set forth ways to unite pro-reunification forces at home and abroad at every stage of the reunification movement.
The idea of “By Our Nation Itself”, the soul of the June 15, 2000 Joint Declaration, fully represents the President’s idea of overall national unity.
The great traditions of national unity enable the Korean people to foil the challenges of the anti-reunification forces at home and abroad, and achieve the country’s reunification by the concerted efforts of the nation.