Yoomi Jeong presente!

WW photo: Deirdre Griswold

Yoomi Jeong, deputy secretary-general of the Korea Truth Commission, died on July 26 after a long, heroic battle against cancer. An obituary paying tribute to Jeong’s contributions to the anti-imperialist struggle will appear in a future WW issue. Workers World Party’s National Secretariat sent the following statement to the memorial for Yoomi Jeong held July 28 in South Korea:

Yoomi Jeong was a true internationalist and at the same time a passionate, indomitable fighter for the Korean people and their cause of peace, national reunification and sovereignty. Her beautiful face honestly portrayed her inner beauty of character, selflessness, devotion to principle and determination to do what is right.

Workers World Party’s commitment to the Korean struggle brought us into close comradeship with Yoomi. She never failed to help us understand the twists and turns of Washington’s maneuvering. She was always there with analysis and action. She made time to accompany Party comrades on visits to Maehyang-ri, Gwangju, Kyengsan and other sites of great significance so we could help shine the light of truth on the terrible crimes committed by the U.S. imperialist military against the Korean people and their land.

We have been with her on picketlines at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, surrounded by hundreds of cops. And we have been with her at demonstrations in New York and Washington against U.S. aggression in other parts of the world: Iraq, Haiti, Yugoslavia. She was always ready to express the solidarity of the struggling Korean people with their sisters and brothers in other lands.

Yoomi was very much in solidarity with the struggles of the workers and oppressed inside the U.S. She connected them to the struggles on the Korean peninsula against imperialism, and was especially supportive of the movement here to free Black revolutionary journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal and other political prisoners.

It is a terrible tragedy that this fearless, sweet, disciplined woman-comrade is gone. She is irreplaceable. Yet we are sure others have already come forward to carry on her work. We know that her loving partner Johnny and all her many friends and admirers did everything they could to help her. If that and her own amazing strength of will had been enough to overcome cancer, she would be alive and well today.