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Pyongyang, March 9 (KCNA) -- Kim Il, an anti-Japanese war veteran, is one of the
revolutionary forerunners who devoted themselves to the heroic struggle for the
sovereignty, independence and socialist construction of Korea. He was born into
a poor peasant family in Orang County, North Hamgyong Province, in March 1910.
Under the guidance of President Kim Il Sung, he took part in the revolution in
the early 1930s and made a contribution to winning the historic victory in the
anti-Japanese war as a regiment political commissar of the Korean People's
Revolutionary Army.
He worked at responsible positions of the Party and state including
vice-chairman of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, first
vice-premier of the Cabinet, premier of the Administration Council and first
vice-president of the DPRK, thus rendering a distinguished service to the
strengthening and development of the Party, the building of the revolutionary
armed forces and the socialist economic construction. He, a veteran of the
Korean revolution and a renowned activist of the Party and the state, set a
living example as a true revolutionary who upheld the President with sincerity
and remained boundlessly faithful to the Party and the revolution through his
whole life.
He held in high esteem the President as the sun of the revolution and the savior
of the destiny of the nation from the period of the anti-Japanese armed
struggle. Though he was a commanding officer of the guerrilla army, he
personally carried the reserve food for the President on his back all the time,
saying that even if they all died, the Korean revolution would surely emerge
victorious as long as the President was healthy.
In the postwar rehabilitation and construction period, he waged an uncompromised
and principled struggle against the factionists to firmly defend the idea and
lines put forward by the President. And in his last years, he energetically
guided the economic affairs, visiting socialist construction sites across the
country with a stick in his hand. He, together with other anti-Japanese
revolutionary veterans, greatly contributed to successfully solving the issue of
carrying forward revolutionary cause. Kim Il passed away on March 9, Juche 73
(1984). His remains lie at the Mt. Taesong Revolutionary Martyrs Cemetery.
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By Yonson Ahn, The Japan Focus
Abstract: This article explores how and why history and
archaeology have been mobilised and utilised in nationalist projects in East
Asia, especially in the case of the Koguryo dispute between Korea and China.
Koguryo (Korean)/Gaogouli (Chinese), an ancient kingdom in the period between 37
BC and AD 668, encompassed a vast area from central Manchuria to south of Seoul.
According to the “Northeast Project”, launched in China in 2002, Gaogouli was an
ethnic regime in an ancient Chinese province. In contrast, Korean historians of
nationalist persuasion view Koguryo as an ancestral state of the Korean
historical tradition and a foundation of the national identity. Unity,
continuity and coherence are claimed in both communities through invoking the
history and culture of Koguryo/Gaogouli. Koguryo/Gaogouli relics which were put
on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2004 are pivotal in the contestation
between China and Korea. In both, the ancient relics are held to show the
distinctiveness of a national past linked to the present. This article argues
that the contested history of Koguryo/Gaogouli should be examined as a site of
historical hybridity between China and Korea, rather than being claimed as a
site of exclusive national history.
...For Koreans, the northern lands of Puyo (Korean)/Fuyu (Chinese), Koguryo and
Parhae have been thought of as a spiritual motherland nourishing Korean culture
(Byington 2004-c). Amongst the ancient kingdoms, Koguryo has always been treated
as an ancestral state within the Korean historical tradition which both nurtures
and unites people under one national identity, a feeling that has been
particularly strong in North Korea. Thus, across the political spectrum in
academia and NGOs, South Koreans have been unanimous in criticizing China’s
claim to Koguryo’s historical heritage. This has been true in North Korea, as
well. A shared Korean nationalism has facilitated North-South cooperation on the
issue. Choe Kwang-sik (2004-b), a leading South Korean historian and protester
in the Koguryo affair, points out that the Chinese remapping of history could
result in reducing the span of Korean history to less than 2,000 years, thereby
losing 700 years of a proud chapter of its history, losing a historical pillar
of Korean identity, delimiting the size of Korea's territory to an area south of
the Han River.
A trans-historical “we” with timeless qualities is constructed
in nationalist narratives. Yoe Ho-kyu (2004), another South Korean historian,
asserts that “it is absolutely clear that the Goguryeo people are ancestors of
the Korean people because Korea inherited Goguryeo culture in its entirety.”
Koguryo history is thus mobilised to buttress the continuity of the Korean
nation-state since the foundation of the nation by Tan’gun, roughly five
millennia ago, through to the modern nation-state. The historically recovered
ancient past has been powerful in defining contemporary Korean national
identity. Thus, the Koguryo issue has led to an escalation in the debate over
sites of “ethnic origins” and national continuity in Korea. The concerns over
“damaging the origin of the Korean nation fatally” so that Korea becomes “a
rootless nation” have been expressed in the media. This maintains the trope that
“Our roots define us.”
Protests against claims to the Chineseness of Koguryo have been intense. In
December 2003, activist groups in South Korea and overseas launched a public
awareness campaign. South Korean civic activists held a series of rallies in
protest against the Northeast Project and the Chinese government. The issue has
become a frequent topic on TV and radio. A group of seventeen historical
societies across South Korea took joint action against their Chinese
counterparts in December 2003. The Society for Korean Ancient History issued a
statement condemning China’s actions. Rallies have been held outside the Chinese
embassy in Seoul. Scores of websites dedicated to the study of Koguryo have
sprung up. Korean “netizens” protest and lay emphasis on “Korean spirit” by
posting, for example, statements such as this: “as a small country, we have
suffered countless hardships and humiliation at the hands of stronger nations,
but the spirit of Korea can never be extinguished.”
“The Spirit of Koguryo is in the hearts of 80 million Koreans,”
reads a wide banner hung in Seoul during a demonstration in January 2004. It was
referring to the populations of both North and South, as well as to Koreans
living abroad. The Chinese claims to Koguryo have resulted in promoting
cooperation between North and South Koreans and the Korean diaspora. The nation
is inscribed as one surrounded by others who “steal” “our history and
territory”. Collective needs to preserve the community’s irreplaceable
historical values have been strongly addressed in the face of China’s
nationalist projects.
Indeed, the two Koreas have competed to establish hegemony and legitimacy as
heirs of the Korean nation since the partition in the postwar era. Koguryo
antiquities and history embody special political significance in this
competition. They denote the legitimacy of political authority and rule in North
Korea. Koguryo is eulogised as an embodiment of the true national spirit and
depicted as a champion of Koreanness against treacherous pro-foreign Silla in
the North Korean official version of history ( Petrov 2004). Some North Korean
archaeologists deny that “the Han Chinese ever conquered any part of the Korean
peninsula.” (Pearson 1978, in Nelson 1995: 229) North Korean historians
underline the “self-reliance, uniqueness and superiority of Goguryeo culture”.
(Chin Ho-t’ae 1990) Accordingly, Chinese claims on Koguryo have been strongly
denounced as “a pathetic attempt to manipulate history for its own interests” or
“intentionally distorting historical facts through biased perspectives” in North
Korean media...
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Pyongyang, February 13 (KCNA) -- The "volunteer system" forced
on Koreans was cooked up by the Japanese imperialists during their colonial rule
over Korea for the purpose of hurling young and middle-aged Korean people into
the war of aggression on the continent as cannon fodder. The Japanese
imperialists, who started the Sino-Japanese war in an attempt to realize their
wild ambition to conquer the continent, found the way out to fill the shortage
of armed forces in mobilizing young and middle-aged Korean people to the
battlefields. They enforced the "volunteer system", not compulsory military
service system, for the fear of Korean people leveling guns at them if they were
provided with arms without any advanced preparation.
Minister of the Army of Japan Itagaki said at a meeting of the committee for
revising military service law of the diet in February 1939 that the volunteer
system of Koreans was good but he was going to decide on the military
conscription system after experiencing its actual results. His remarks show that
the "volunteer system" of Koreans was an experimental military service system
trumped up by the Japanese imperialists prior to the "military conscription
system". The Japanese imperialists, who set up a strict standard for selecting
"volunteer soldiers", started to execute it in 1938.
They fabricated the "Korean League", fascist repressive machinery, set up
executive offices in all provincial, county, township and sub-county
administrative organs, social organizations and schools under it. And they
allotted the number of "volunteer soldiers" to them and forced them to conscript
the allotted members almost every day. The Japanese imperialists took young and
middle-aged Korean people to "training centers for volunteers" to imbue them
with the militarist ideology of Japan and give them a military education with
"physical training" as the main. The Korean "volunteers" had to undergo national
discrimination, maltreatment and humiliation even on the battlefields, to say
nothing of the "training centers for volunteers". A large number of young and
middle aged Korean people who were hurled into battlefields under the deceptive
"volunteer system" died.
Pyongyang, February 6 (KCNA) -- The Publishing House of Social
Science of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has published "Issues
Related to Koguryo History" and "Castles of Koguryo", books on Koguryo which
existed as a powerful state in the East for nearly a thousand years. The book
"Issues Related to Koguryo History" has a prologue, an epilogue and eight
chapters including "Building of Koguryo, World of Kings", "Course of Territorial
Annexation and Integration by Koguryo", "Feudal Social, Political and Military
Systems of Koguryo and Its Major Political Events" and "External Relationship,
Independent Foreign Policy of Koguryo".
It deals with the territory, national power, relationship between Koguryo and
neighboring countries, social system and other major issues related to Koguryo
that had been distorted, fabricated and dwarfed by internal and external feudal
historians and reptile historians of the Japanese imperialists and that have
been clarified and corrected by the historical academy of Korea since the
liberation of the country. The book "Castles of Koguryo" contains a prologue, an
appendix and six chapters including "Distribution of Castles of Koguryo",
"Castle Defense System of Koguryo", "Characteristics of Koguryo Castles" and
"Influence of Castle Architecture of Koguryo Exerted on Surrounding Countries".
It says the prosperity of Koguryo was firmly guaranteed by the high degree of
patriotism of the Koguryo people who regarded the national defence as the most
sacred duty and by the castles that were the products of their distinguished
creative power. Meanwhile, the publishing house brought out "Collection of
Scientific Papers on Koguryo History" (two volumes).
Pyongyang, August 24 (KCNA) -- A symposium of historians was
held by the Academy of Social Sciences Tuesday, 60 years since Ukishima-maru was
blown up by the Japanese imperialists. Present there were Thae Hyong Chol,
president of the Academy of Social Sciences, officials concerned and teachers
and researchers in the field of social science and of universities.
Speakers cited concrete historical facts to prove that the case was an inhuman
and national chauvinistic massacre of Koreans committed by the Japanese
imperialists. They disclosed what monstrous crimes were committed by the
Japanese imperialists against those aboard the ship. The Japanese authorities
are falsifying truth about the incident which claimed thousands of civilian
casualties, while dastardly working to keep the incident buried into oblivion at
any cost, understating the number of the victims, the speakers said, and went
on:
Worse still, Japan views the incident from the political view-point of negating
its past crimes. Even the legal circle of Japan tends to back the stand of its
government. The reality indicates that a proper settlement of the incident
presents itself as one of the political and legal issues related to protecting
and exercising the dignity and sovereignty of the Korean nation.
The speakers strongly charged that the blowing up of the ship was a grave international criminal act of blatantly challenging justice and moral sense of the international community and gravely violating international law as it was perpetrated by the Japanese military authorities in a premeditated and deliberate manner with the approval of the Japanese government. The army and the people of the DPRK will carry on their struggle, true to the Songun leadership of Kim Jong Il, till Japan, the sworn enemy, fully apologizes and compensates for all its past crimes.
Anna Fifield, Financial Times, August 15-23, 2005
...The road to Panmunjeom is a bumpy one. Partly because it heads directly to
the demilitarised zone and therefore South Korea, from which North Korea has
been painfully separated for more than 50 years, and partly because it has many,
many potholes. But optimistically, a road sign on the approach to the village
where the 1953 ceasefire that ended the Korean War was signed, declares: Seoul
70km. As if a North Korean family could, on a whim, just keep going.
The sign speaks of more than distance. Just as in the south, over the past 10
days I have heard wish after wish for reunification.
“Korean people have been suffering for more than 55 years,” Colonel Kim Kwan-gil
told me as he showed me through the buildings at Panmunjeom where the ceasefire
agreement was signed.
“I don’t think you can imagine how much the suffering our people bear because of
this division. Brothers who were separated as children are now white-haired old
men,” he said. Indeed, the division of the peninsula remains a living tragedy,
and Panmunjeom lies in the middle of it, in the demilitarised zone between the
two Koreas, the world’s last cold war frontier and a spot Bill Clinton once
called “the scariest place on earth”.
The 4km-wide zone narrows to an imaginary line down the centre of a negotiating
table in a blue hut. Outside, soldiers from North and South Korea face off,
while the southerners adopt taekwondo “ready” positions on their side of the
shack. (Incidentally, when entering the northern side, one sees a large Samsung
air conditioning unit facing north, a savvy piece of South Korean consumerist
propaganda if ever I saw one.)
It does feel scary when you approach from the southern side, as there is a
strict dress code – no jeans, no T-shirts – and an even stricter photography
code, with visitors told not to wave or laugh or do any other such incendiary
things while in the view of the North. Approaching from the North, however, has
an entirely different feel. Colonel Kim and I wandered around on the balcony of
the North Korean building with little concern for protocol, me asking him about
nuclear weapons and him asking me about the South’s view of reunification.
Seoul-dwelling foreign visitors to the North are advised not to offer
information on where they live, so initially I was trying to be cagey, but I
soon realised I was giving myself away the moment I opened my mouth. People here
are most surprised that I can speak a little “Chosunmal” – North Korean –
although it is abundantly clear from the moment I opened my mouth that I was
speaking “Hangookmal” – South Korean. (Indeed, Mr Ri never tires of laughing at
my “posh” Seoul accent.)
Far from invoking suspicion, it elicits many questions. I have found North
Koreans are very interested not so much in how people live in Seoul – although
there have been a few questions about the number of cars and mobile phones – but
in how they think, with unification invariably first on the list. I told Colonel
Kim that even after only one year in Seoul and 10 days in Pyongyang, I have been
struck by the extent to which Koreans remain one people.
Obviously I knew that ethnically and linguistically they were one people –
although I was intrigued to discover that just as South Koreans call the North
“North South-Korea”, North Koreans call their southern neighbour “South
North-Korea” – but I have noticed many similarities that post-date the war. When
I was taken to the West Sea Barrage, a dam built between the Taedong River and
the West Sea to stop the salination of the river, I was shown a presentational
video about the project. The Korean war may have occurred before the this
technology was developed, but if it wasn’t for the pictures of Kim Il-sung and
Kim Jong-il on the screen, I would have been hard-pressed to say which half of
the peninsula I was on.
The footage of construction and language of overcoming all the odds to build
something mighty was almost exactly the same as a video I had been shown at a
shipyard in Ulsan at the south of the peninsula.
And when the border guard on the train at Sinuiju asked me why I wasn’t married,
he almost choked when I said I was too young. Knowing from my passport that I am
29, he clearly despaired for my chances of ever being rescued by marriage, a
reaction I get almost every day from taxi drivers in Seoul.
Likewise, as we sat having a picnic near a mountainside stream north of
Pyongyang yesterday, I was intrigued to see the line of ajumas snaking up the
hill wearing huge black sun-visors, a housewife staple in the South.
Most North Koreans I have spoken to during my time in Pyongyang expect to visit
Seoul in their lifetime, and expect to get there by taking a direct train. “Our
economic and social systems are so different now – we are socialist and they are
capitalist,” said Mr Park, a factory worker in the North. “But we are one people
so we should find a way.”
North Koreans would certainly notice the differences rather than the
similarities if they visited neon-filled, congested Seoul. But the ajumas in
their sun-visors would certainly feel at home....
Immortal Feats for Unified Development of National Language
Pyongyang, August 22 (KCNA) -- The compilation of "Large Korean Dictionary", the
first unified dictionary of the national language, is progressing apace in
Korea. Philologists of the Academy of Social Sciences are doing their best for
the work with an ardent patriotism, bearing deep in mind the great efforts made
by President Kim Il Sung to prevent the division of the national language and
achieve its unified development.
Right after the liberation of the country, some fame-seekers "invented" a
six-letter alphabet and distributed prospectus of alphabetic reform. And they
organized a committee for the reform and even made up the new Korean spelling
system. In his historic work "On the Reform of Letters" in December Juche
36(1947), the President, with a profound analysis of the obtaining situation,
noted that the letter reform was a very important issue related to the future of
the nation and that the Korean nation was a homogeneous one, which had lived in
the same territory with the same language and letters from olden times. And he
said that if the letters were reformed in the north only with the country
divided into two owing to the occupation of south Korea by the U.S. imperialists
after the liberation, the people in the north and the south could not read each
other's publications and letters and the nation would remain divided in the long
run.
During a conversation with Ri Kuk Ro, head of the Korean Linguistic Association,
in the spring of 1949, he stated that the letter reform was a job to be done
only after national reunification. In his famous work "On Compiling Korean
Grammar Textbook Well" in May 1950, he criticized the serious faults of the
Korean grammar textbook (written in 1949) and indicated the direction and way
for rewriting the textbook, saying that the part on the unscientific and
anti-national six-letter alphabet should be deleted. In July 1954 he said that
the "proposal for simplifying Korean alphabet" using 10 consonants at the end of
syllables made in south Korea under the manipulation of the U.S. imperialists
lacked science and logic and that the Korean spelling system should be based on
the morphological principle without fail.
When meeting a reverend from south Korea at the end of 1980s, the President made
very important remarks concerning the compilation of a dictionary for the
unified development of the national language. His remarks served as a definite
guarantee for linguistic uniformity in the north and the south. The compilation
of "Large Korean Dictionary" is being carried on as an important work to
implement the behest of President Kim Il Sung and to realize the noble idea of
leader Kim Jong Il on achieving great national unity.
Ross King on a 6-letter alphabet for Korean
Associate Professor of Korean, University of British Columbia and Dean, Korean Language Village, Concordia Language Villages
Q. Who would have guessed that the Great Leader was so exercised by
matters of morphology? (But then Stalin too wrote on linguistics - or somebody
did, under his name.)
A. Kim Il Sung is by no means the only 'great' Korean leader to have
intervened directly in matters orthographic and linguistic. A couple of the
references (from the 1940s and 1950s) in the article you site are new to me, but
of course his most famous pronouncements (whether he actually wrote them or not)
were his 'conversations with linguists' from 1964 and 1966 which set a new
course for North Korean language policy and are excellent source documents for
Korean thinking about language and identity.
Q. A 6-letter alphabet, for Korean?
A. The reference is to an aborted orthographic reform from the late 1940s
that seems to have been spearheaded by Kim Twupong (Kim Tu-bong). The idea was
to create six new hangul letters (in addition to the ones we already have) to
represent certain 'irregular' alternations in Korean verb forms. So, for
example, for verbs like tutta, tule yo 'listen', the idea was to create a
special new letter (let's call it "T") and write instead: tuTta, tuTeyo -- the
idea was to orthographically 'regularize' irregularity (alternations) in certain
Korean verb classes.
So the idea was not a six-letter alphabet, but six new graphs as part of an
orthographic reform. The linguistic thought behind the reform was criticized
rather savagely by Russian/Soviet linguist Kholodovich shortly after it was
published, but the whole episode remained unknown in south Korea for some
decades.
The piece from the JoongAng on linguistic misunderstandings across the DMZ
is a timely reminder of the salient role that language (and especially
orthography) plays these days in imaginings about Korean identity.
* For more references, see: Ross King (forthcoming/2005?). "Language and national identity in the Koreas," in Andrew Simpson (ed.), _Language and national identity in Asia_. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
By Andrei Lankov, Asia Times, Aug. 18, 2005
There is a new textbook out on North Korean history, written by a group of young
South Korean scholars. The book is meant for those high school students and
college undergraduates who for some reason want to learn more about the North
(not a very common desire among the Seoul youngsters, one would think).
The textbook dedicates quite a few pages to the 1946 land reform in the North,
whose radicalism is favorably contrasted with the sluggishness of similar
measures in South Korea. Basically, it's true: the South Korean government of
1948-1950 included too many landlords to be enthusiastic about land
redistribution. But there was something in the story that made one laugh: the
book failed to mention that from beginning to end, land reform in North Korea
was planned by Soviet military authorities.
Land reform was promulgated in the name of nascent North Korean authorities, but
Kim Il-sung simply signed the documents that had been prepared for him by
Russian officers. This is evident from Russian papers on land reform, which were
declassified and published in South Korea years ago. But these facts do not fit
the authors' concept and hence are not mentioned in the textbook.
A couple of weeks ago this author met a Westerner who studied in Korea late last
year. His young professor suggested to him and other students that it was
unlikely the Soviet Union had approved Kim Il-sung's war plans in 1950, and
Moscow had actually been caught by surprise when the war started. The Korean
War, according to this logic, was initiated by the North without any involvement
of foreigners, and hence could be seen as a civil war.
Once again, all relevant materials have been published over the past decade or
so, and thanks to the efforts of many scholars, the inside story of the Korean
War is now known to the smallest detail. Most publications are English, and
Korean professors are not well known for good knowledge of the language. Still,
some important papers have been translated into Korean and are widely used by
many Korean academics. Nonetheless, this young professor behaved as if these
papers did not exist.
Wartime atrocities are widely discussed by the South Korean media. Indeed, the
end of official bans has made it possible to tell about mass killings committed
by South Korean forces during the anti-guerilla warfare of the late 1940s and
1950s (the 1948-54 massacre on Jeju Island, in which US-supported troops rooted
out communists and their sympathizers, is the most notorious example). However,
there are fewer publications and far less research dealing with the slaughters
committed by the communist guerrillas and North Korean forces. The picture of
the early 1950s as presented by the increasingly dominant nationalist left
consists of idealistic guerrillas fighting the blood-thirsty and corrupt police.
There are few doubts that the communist guerrillas of 1946-1955 were idealistic,
but idealism is perfectly compatible with cruelty, as the deeds of Pol Pot and
his followers demonstrated with extreme clarity in Cambodia. But this is not how
the recent past is presented in the South - at least, not in the fashionable
circles of politically active intellectuals.
South Korea was once the domain of knee-jerk anti-communism, but nowadays
"progressive" (left-wing) academics increasingly have come to dominate the South
Korean intellectual world. And these people badly want to play down the impact
the Soviet Union once had on the North. They want it so badly that they
sometimes even pretend to be ignorant of new material that clearly contradicts
the version of history they want to have.
At the same time, they are ready to repeat all accusations against the US - such
as by an author of another book who mentioned the "biological warfare"
allegations of the 1950s as if there must be some truth in these old statements.
Once again, Soviet documents indicate how the entire biological warfare affair
was fabricated by over-zealous North Korean officials. And once again, many
people in South Korea behave as if those papers have never been published.
A 1998 New York Times report quoted Cold War historians as saying they
then knew more about how and why the Soviet Union and China fabricated a
campaign in the 1950s to persuade the world that the United States used germ and
chemical warfare in the Korean War. Documentary evidence from Moscow's secret
archives suggested that the charge was instigated by Chinese field advisers to
the North Koreans. With many Koreans dying of cholera, the Chinese advisers
decided US chemical and biological warfare must have been the cause, the report
said. As well, the story suggested that to make the charge stick, the communists
went to extraordinary measures - infecting North Koreans awaiting execution with
plague and cholera so their bodies could be shown to outside investigators, and
forcing 25 captured American pilots to sign confessions.
On the other hand, the book The United States and Biological Warfare: Secrets
From the Early Cold War and Korea by Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagerman
and published the same year, sees the authors accuse US and Canadian forces of
having waged offensive biological warfare by using artificially infected insects
as vectors during the Korean campaign. They concede that all major powers have
experimented with biological warfare agents. Subsequent scholarly articles based
on documents from the former Soviet Union also suggest the use of biological
warfare.
So, why do some choose to ignore the evidence that disproves the allegations of
use of biological warfare? They do so because this distortion nicely serves
their own political agenda, which has little to do with North Korea or its
history. The modern South Korean left was borne of struggle against the
right-wing military regimes of the 1960s and 1970s and came to perceive them as
an embodiment of evil. Actually, as dictatorships go, the South Korean strongmen
were relatively mild and exceptionally efficient in the economic management.
Thus, the left wants to show the illegitimacy of its opponents, insisting that
the South Korean state from its inception was not "authentically national",
instead it was compromised by the wide employment of former pro-Japanese
collaborators and by close cooperation with the US military. Needless to say,
such collaboration is always emphasized.
But to advance their ideas even further, those political intellectuals also need
a positive example, which would be able to stand for everything good in their
picture of national history. Hence, they chose to believe that the early North
Korean state was a complete opposite to the allegedly corrupt and dependent
Seoul government of the era. There are hard facts that demonstrate that until
1950 for all practical purposes the North Korean state was a Soviet puppet, but
these facts do not fit into their world picture nicely, and hence are not
mentioned.
Even a cursory look through now-available historical documents clearly
indicates: In 1945-1950, the North Korean regime operated under complete control
of Soviet supervisors. Who drafted the above-mentioned land reform law? Soviet
advisers. Who edited and, after some deliberation, confirmed the North Korean
constitution of 1948? Joseph Stalin himself. Who arrested all major opponents to
the emerging communist regime? The Soviet military police. Where were the
dissidents sent to do their time? To Siberia, of course.
The available papers leave no doubt that even relatively mundane actions of the
North Korean government needed approval from Moscow. The Soviet politburo, a
supreme council of the state, approved the agenda of the North Korean
rubber-stamping parliament and even "gave permission" to stage a parade in 1948.
The much-trumpeted conference of politicians from the North and South in spring
1948 was another Soviet idea, even if the leftist historians now love to depict
it as yet another expression of Pyongyang's willingness to negotiate based on
its alleged national feelings. The most important speeches to be delivered by
the North Korean leaders had to be read and approved in the Soviet Embassy.
If all these do not give us a right to describe the North of 1945-1950 as a
"puppet regime", what further evidence is needed. But such facts do not fit the
agenda of many South Korean intellectuals who are allergic to the anti-communist
propaganda of their youth.
This does not necessarily mean that they are admirers of the present-day North
(some of them are but most aren't). But they want to believe in a myth of some
pure, truly national state that was created by the spontaneous outburst of the
masses' revolutionary zeal and had nothing to do with any corrupting influence
by foreign powers. This vision is not quite compatible with Soviet colonels
writing North Korean leader Kim Il-sung's speeches (imagine an American military
officer writing a speech for South Korea's first president, Syngman Rhee, some
time in 1947).
One cannot help but wonder: what will happen when the North Korean regime
collapses and when the scale of its brutality becomes blatantly obvious? What
will these intellectuals then say? I suspect that many of them will change their
minds and will start blaming the regime's exceptional cruelty on malevolent
foreign influences, on these scheming brutal Russians whose involvement is now
denied or played down.
However until then, with the true scale of atrocities still remaining unknown
(at least denied by those who are oblivious to the obvious), every "progressive"
intellectual in South Korea is still supposed to believe in the authentically
Korean regime that once flourished north of the 38th parallel.
Dr Andrei Lankov is a lecturer in the faculty of Asian Studies,
China and Korea Center, Australian National University. He graduated from
Leningrad State University with a PhD in Far Eastern history and China, with
emphasis on Korea, and his thesis focused on factionalism in the Yi Dynasty. He
has published books and articles on Korea and North Asia. He is currently on
leave, teaching at Kookmin University, Seoul.
Day of Korea's Liberation Editorially Observed
Pyongyang, August 15 (KCNA) -- Papers Monday dedicate editorials to the 60th
anniversary of the liberation of Korea. Rodong Sinmun says that the 60th
anniversary of Korea's liberation comes to be a historical occasion to glorify
the immortal exploits of President Kim Il Sung, the father of socialist Korea
and the founder of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and a great
political event powerfully demonstrating the invincible spirit of Songun Korea
in which the whole Party, all the servicepersons and people are single-heartedly
united around the headquarters of the revolution.
It goes on: August 15, 1945 was the day of the resurrection for the Korean
nation and the day of the birth of new Korea as it was in the danger of being
eclipsed from the world map for good by the outside forces. The victory in the
anti-Japanese war and the liberation of Korea were the events which diverted the
trend of history in the 20th century. The history in which the DPRK has
advanced, holding Kim Il Sung in high esteem, is the one in which the Koreans
pioneered their own way and successfully accomplished the cause of socialism
centered on the popular masses, the ever-victorious one in which the sovereignty
of the Korean nation has been firmly defended, standing on the forefront of
anti-imperialist struggle, and a great one in which a solid foundation has been
laid for the eternal prosperity of the nation.
60 years of victory and glory covered by the DPRK are marked with the immortal
exploits leader Kim Jong Il has performed by successfully implementing Kim Il
Sung's idea and cause of building the country. Kim Jong Il has devoted his all
to the struggle to implement the above-said idea and cause of the President as
his closest comrade-in-arms and revolutionary comrade for several decades. Kim
Jong Il has led the cause of building a great prosperous powerful nation, while
making ceaseless long journeys for Songun leadership. The struggle to
steadfastly defend the banner of Juche adds lustre to the history of his
leadership over the building of a rich and powerful country.
The DPRK is now faced with the historic tasks to get the whole Party and army
and all the people single-heartedly united to dynamically speed up the general
march for Songun revolution in order to achieve the prosperity of the country,
which the President liberated and built up. It is necessary to firmly uphold and
thoroughly implement the idea and line of the President generation after
generation. The whole Party and army and all the people should single-mindedly
unite around Kim Jong Il and uphold his leadership with loyalty.
Minju Joson calls upon all the people to strikingly demonstrate to the
whole world the dignity and honor, wisdom and spirit of the country liberated by
the President and accomplish the revolutionary cause of Juche under the Songun
leadership of Kim Jong Il.
Homage Paid to Kim Il Sung
Pyongyang, August 15 (KCNA) -- Senior officials of the Party, the state and the
army, servicepersons of the Korean People's Army and people from all walks of
life visited the Kumsusan Memorial Palace on Monday to pay homage to President
Kim Il Sung on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Korea's liberation.
Senior officials of the Workers' Party of Korea, the state and the army,
chairpersons of the friendly parties, members of the Cabinet, leading officials
of the Party, military and power bodies, socials organizations, ministries and
national institutions entered the hall in which the statue of Kim Il Sung
stands.
Amid the solemn playing of the immortal revolutionary paean "Song of General Kim
Il Sung" a floral basket in the joint name of the Central Committee and the
Central Military Commission of the WPK, the National Defence Commission of the
DPRK, the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly of the DPRK and the DPRK
Cabinet was laid before the statue. Written on the ribbon of the floral basket
were letters "The Great Leader Comrade Kim Il Sung Is Immortal!"
Senior officials of the Party, the state and the army paid homage to the statue.
When they entered the hall where the President lies in state, they made bows in
humble reverence to the President. And they went round the orders and medals and
honorary title certificates he received from the DPRK and different countries of
the world, the portrait of the President with sunny smile on his face and bronze
relievos in the Mourning Hall, a train he used during the on-the-spot guidance
and foreign tour and a car he used during the last period of his life.
Anti-Japanese revolutionary fighters, servicepersons of the KPA, officials of
organs at various levels and people from all walks of life visited the Palace on
the same day. Meanwhile, the participants in the World Conference in Support of
the Independent and Peaceful Reunification of Korea visited the Palace to pay
homage to the President on Monday.
DPRK, China Cooperate in Documentary Field
Beijing, August 13 (KCNA) -- An agreement on cooperation in documentary field was signed here on Aug. 12 between the DPRK State Archive Bureau and the State Archive Administration of China. Present at the signing ceremony from the DPRK side were members of a delegation of the State Archive Bureau led by Director Jon Song Guk and from the Chinese side were the director general of the State Archive Administration and officials concerned. The agreement was inked by Jon Song Guk and the director general of the Chinese administration.
Book on History of Anti-Japanese Armed Struggle Published
Pyongyang, August 14 (KCNA) -- Book "History of Anti-Japanese Armed Struggle"
(enlarged edition) vol. 9 was brought out by the Science and Encyclopedia
Publishing House. Recorded in the book are the undying feats President Kim Il
Sung performed, wisely leading the struggle to conserve and build up the forces
of the Korean People's Revolutionary Army, the mainstay of the Korean
revolution, train them to be competent political and military cadres and meet
the great event of national liberation with full preparations in the historic
period from August Juche 29 (1940) to April Juche 34 (1945).
It explains that the President made a historic report "On Preparing for the
Great Event of National Liberation" at the meeting in Xiaohaerbaling, Dunhua
County on August 10, Juche 29 (1940), at which he indicated the strategic tasks
for the Korean revolution in those days and advanced the new policy of struggle
and immediate tasks for their materialization. Carried in it are concrete data
on the fact that the President wisely led the work to strengthen the
international united front against imperialism and fascism while intensifying
the actions of the KPRA.
In this period, the President was held in higher esteem as the center of the
leadership of the Korean revolution with the ardent desire and wish of the KPRA
members as well as the activists of the old generation and patriotic people from
all walks of life and it was a historic event to be specially recorded in the
history of the Korean revolutionary movement, the book says. It also deals with
the facts that the President put forward the tasks for intensifying the
political and military activities of small units and groups of the KPRA to step
up the preparations for the final decisive battle against Japanese imperialism
and led the struggle for their materialization to victory.
The book describes in detail about the facts that under his wise guidance
energetic efforts were made to comprehensively complete the preparations for the
party foundation and a drive for preparations for all-people resistance was
intensified such as uniting all the anti-Japanese patriotic forces and rapidly
expanding organizations for armed uprising.
Rodong Sinmun on Common Idea of Humankind
Pyongyang, August 14 (KCNA) -- Independence is the just idea reflecting the
intrinsic nature of the popular masses and the noble international idea which
humankind should jointly take hold on and implement, stresses Rodong Sinmun in a
signed article Sunday. The article says:
If one allows the other to do pressure and intervention or acts under the baton
of others, failing to keep the independent principle in politics, one will
forfeit independence and, after all, it will make a mess of the revolution and
construction. This is a serious lesson drawn from the collapse of former East
European socialist countries. The Workers' Party of Korea has consistently
adhered to and implemented the principles of Juche in ideology, independence in
politics, self-support in the economy and self-reliance in national defence in
the whole period from the struggle for national liberation to the struggle for
building a new country after the liberation, the Fatherland Liberation War, the
postwar rehabilitation and construction and the socialist revolution and
construction.
Thanks to the consistent and steadfast independent politics of the WPK, the DPRK
could straightly advance along the road of socialism chosen by it, without the
slightest vacillation in the rapidly changing situation of the world. The Songun
politics of the WPK is the most vivid expression of independent politics. This
politics has immensely increased the national power of the DPRK and its
influence.
The imperialists and dominationists are working hard to block the peoples from
advancing toward the road of independence but in vain. The 21st century will be
a century in which the humankind's idea of independence is carried into practice
in all aspects and independent politics becomes the basic political mode of the
world. The Korean people will invariably uphold the idea of independence, the
banner of Songun to accomplish the revolutionary cause of Juche and more
dynamically struggle to realize the cause of global independence.
Militarist Japan Has No Future
Pyongyang, August 13 (KCNA) -- Japan has a record of most hideous war crimes as
it provoked many bloody wars against other countries in the past. Its history is
woven with wars and plunder of other countries, as evidenced by the Imjin war it
started against Korea in 1592 under the absurd pretext of "opening the way to
Ming Dynasty."
In order to invade sovereign states Japan fabricated "treaties" with no legal
validity by brigandish methods and indiscriminately killed and abducted innocent
civilians in the occupied areas. In this period it savagely looted natural
resources and cultural treasures in the regions under its occupation. After the
Second World War it was severely punished by the international community and
registered in the UN Charter as an enemy state. Japan is the only country that
has neither apologized nor repented of its past crimes though it is 60 years
since its defeat, far from compensating for them.
Japan is ridiculous enough to readvocate its plan for the "Greater East Asia
Co-prosperity Sphere" which it had used as a political basis for igniting the
"Pacific War". It is explaining this as the main reason why it has denied its
acts of aggression. It has gone the lengths of painting its war of aggression as
a "war for liberation". It has long beautified its war of aggression.
Even after its defeat Japan refused to admit that it was a defeated nation and a
criminal state and refrained from using the word "surrender". In the wake of its
defeat Japan worked hard to conceal its past crimes. It was aimed to instill
into all members of the Japanese society the extreme national egoist view on
history that they should not feel guilty of war crimes at all and help Japan
remain in the international area a normal state, not a war criminal state.
Japan is, however, an abnormal country whose ugly image remains unimproved. The
present political system in Japan is of Rightist nature, extremely militarist
nature reminiscent of the era of Empire. Rightist conservative forces whose goal
is to militarize Japan form the main forces of its political circle.
These militarist forces are directly exercising increasing influence on shaping
policies. Japan's political circle which identifies militarism with its mental
mainstay is focusing all its efforts on infusing it into all members of the
society. It is the main job of the political, public, cultural, academic and
press and other circles of Japan to arm the Japanese with the militarist idea.
Meanwhile, high-ranking officials of the Japanese government and its
conservative forces unhesitatingly visit the "Yasukuni Shrine" under the pretext
of "paying homage to the war dead." Burning incense there, they call back the
departed soul of militarists and urge Japanese to learn from their "spirit." All
the provocative moves of Japan such as distorting history and beautifying it
which arouse concern and vigilance among Asian countries are prompted by the
wild ambition of its Rightist forces to realize militarization.
It is the supreme policy goal of Japan to wind up its militarization for
overseas aggression. Since its defeat Japan has consistently pursued
militarization. After the demise of the Cold War it adopted a military strategy
for preemptive attack. Japan began reorganizing the military machine in
violation of the present constitution banning the possession of the army after
the war. It is now working in the direction of centralizing the military
structure.
After the adoption of a series of war laws, Japan regained the right to
participate in a war and the right to belligerency, paving the way for overseas
aggression. The "Self-Defense Forces"(SDF) have grown strong both in quality and
in numerical strength. The ground, marine and air SDF have been built into
mobile strike forces for offensive equipped with latest military hardware.
The SDF war preparations have been, in fact, wound up as huge potentials are
already in place for meeting the wartime demands for war equipment and military
materiel. Japan completely lost the criteria of independent politics long ago.
Japan's politics is characterized by its submission and flattery towards the
United States.
Japan's foreign policy is focused on garnering support from the superpower. No
wonder, there are comments even inside Japan that its government does not have
its own policy and independent diplomacy except its practice of toeing the U.S.
line.
Japan has long pursued its diplomatic policy of toeing the U.S. line, going
under the U.S. security "umbrella", away from Asia. Japan has neither reason nor
principle. The international community, therefore, views Japan as an
untrustworthy country. It acts without any faith, grossly reneging on the
commitments made by it before other countries as if nothing had happened.
This was clearly illustrated by Japan's stand and viewpoint on the
implementation of the DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration. Japan has never moved to
fulfill its commitments since the publication of the declaration. It has
persistently peddled the "abduction issue" which had been already settled while
talking about "people's sentiment". Furthermore, it brought the "abduction
issue" to the six-party talks aimed to settle the nuclear issue on the Korean
Peninsula, creating complexity in the way of discussion. Its behavior was only
criticized and derided by the participants in the talks.
Such outcries as "Japan may start a war against north Korea" and "Japan should
make a preemptive strike against the missile bases in north Korea" are now heard
from Japan. It is quite natural for Japan to be called a "political dwarf" and
"politically minor country" which does not know where it stands.
August 15 marks the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Japan. It is a crucial
occasion for Japan in the light of the historical review and from a
future-oriented viewpoint. However, Japan remains unchanged in its state
appearance and political nature. If there be any, it still remains the only
shameless state which has not redressed its past crimes for the last six decades
and it has militarized all the fields of the state, thus emerging a "country
capable of igniting a war" from a "country incapable of waging any war" and,
furthermore, a fascist state in the East gravely threatening once again peace
and security in Asia and the rest of the world in the 21st century. Militarist
Japan has no future as it is rushing headlong into aggression and war.
By Paul Eckert, Asia Correspondent, Sunday, Aug 14, 2005
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Few can denounce the "imperialist ogre" or "kingpin of evil" as well as the writers at North Korea's official news agency, and a California graphic artist is now cataloguing their rhetorical masterpieces on a Web site.
Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA, is the only regular
source of the views of the secretive government of Kim Jong-il available to
diplomats, journalists and scholars. But there was no way for them to search the
archives of KCNA until Geoff Davis, fighting boredom during a rainy San
Francisco spring, decided to hone his Web design skills on a topic he had
followed in news reports on the North Korean nuclear crisis.
"Their propaganda is often unintentionally hilarious and I couldn't find an
existing searchable database of the KCNA on the Web. Thus, NK News was born,"
Davis told Reuters. Launched in May,
www.nk-news.net boasts of having nearly every KCNA article since December
1996 -- "over 50 megabytes of hard-core Stalinist propaganda ... each article
written in the unique and indelible style of the KCNA."
Readers can get a taste of that KCNA style from recommended key word searches,
such as "burning hatred," which turns up 18 articles. The targets of that hot
wrath include Japan, Yankees, "U.S. imperialist ogres" and "class enemies."
"Human scum" yields 25 KCNA reports applying that epithet to U.S. President
George W. Bush, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and diplomat John Bolton.
Rumsfeld also keeps company with Japanese officials in the "political dwarf"
category.
RANDOM INSULT GENERATOR
The flip-side of withering scorn for North Korea's perceived foes is fawning
praise for Kim and his father, state founder Kim Il-sung. Kim Il-sung, who died
in 1994, is hailed as a "peerlessly great man" in 139 articles since 1996.
"Inveterate" is another popular KCNA word and a search for it returns an entry
describing "U.S. imperialists" as "a pack of beasts in human skin and the
inveterate enemy with whom the Korean nation cannot live under the same sky."
"From browsing through the KCNA's propaganda, even the most casual observer can
see that the regime is a cult," said Davis, 31, who makes his living producing
graphics for court trials. Davis took 10 weeks to build
www.nk-news.net , which he calls a "hobby
site," and spends $10 a month to run it. He said he doesn't count page visits
but he has tallied 5,000 searches and has received positive feedback from
journalists and experts on North Korea.
For those seeking a comic diversion from blood-curdling diatribes and
self-congratulatory reports, Davis created a "random insult generator" using
pejorative words commonly found on KCNA. "You loudmouthed beast, your ridiculous
clamour for 'human rights' is nothing but a shrill cry!" reads one insult. One
click later and the message is: "You sycophantic stooge, you have glaringly
revealed your true colours!"
Although he has found a source of satire in a country that is mostly known for
weapons threats, repression and famine, Davis does not joke about North Korea's
nature and says the world must not cut Kim's government any slack. "The 'axis of
evil' remark pales in comparison to a single day of KCNA rhetoric," he said,
referring a controversial 2002 Bush speech that lumped North Korea, Iran and
prewar Iraq in a trio of malign countries.
ARCHIVE:
(October 2002 ~ February 2003)
