leftist friendship with ROK

One Finno-Korean factoid is that the head of the parliamentarian friendship group of the Republic of Korea (or whatever those country friendship groups that members of parliaments have are called) is Kari Uotila of Left Alliance. What is perhaps a little bit of interest is that his party comrades have for the most part felt (and many must still be feeling) affiliation with the northern part of the Korean peninsula than with the southern. Left Alliance is a party born out of the bankrupted (financially and ideologically) Communist Party of Finland and the Finnish People's Democratic League, which was a cover organization for both communists and left-wing socialists who felt too lefty to be Social Democrats. As far as I'm aware, MP Uotila was one of those left-wing socialists. What is also interesting, for his position as the head of the parliamentary South Korea friendship group, is that he is a shipyard worker by profession; perhaps much more than his politics, this fact would discourage him to feel affinity with South Korea, considering the frictions between EU and Korea over shipbuilding. But apparently either his politics or occupation do not matter for him, and that's all good. There's still room further away in the left to support DPRK. Oh well, South Korean rulers are all bunch of commies nowadays anyway, so it's only appropriate that a socialist parlamentarian wants to be their friend. Categories at del.icio.us/hunjang: Korea-Finland ∙ Koreanpolitics