North Korea was yesterday preparing a massive ceremonial farewell to late leader Kim Jong-il as it strove to strengthen a new personality cult around his youthful son and successor, Kim Jong-un.
The secretive state has so far given no details whatsoever of today’s funeral for its “Dear Leader” of the past 17 years.
However, analysts say the regime, as it did in 1994 when Kim Jong-il’s own father died, would use the event to shore up loyalty to the new leader and will likely mobilize hundreds of thousands of people.
Photo: AFP/Korean Central Television (KCTV)
The untested Kim Jong-un, aged only in his late 20s, has been thrust into the world spotlight since his father died suddenly on Dec. 17 aged 69.
Official media have added several titles to his flimsy CV, declaring him “Great Successor,” supreme commander of the world’s fourth-largest military and head of the ruling party’s powerful central committee.
The son, who has not yet been formally appointed to the party and military posts, has been the central figure in scenes of mourning at the Kumsusan Memorial Palace, where his father lies in state in a glass coffin.
On Monday, he met the leaders of two South Korean delegations at the palace, expressing “deep gratitude” for their presence, according to official media.
South Korea, which has remained technically at war with the North for six decades, has responded cautiously to the shake-up in its nuclear-armed neighbor.
Unlike in 1994, Seoul expressed sympathy to the North’s people and made other conciliatory gestures.
However, it authorized mourning visits to Pyongyang by just the two South Korean delegations, a restriction that the North termed “inhuman.”
Lee Hee-ho, widow of former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung, and Hyundai Group chairwoman Hyun Jung-eun paid respects on Monday to the late leader and expressed condolences to Kim Jong-un.
Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-il held the first-ever inter-Korean summit in 2000 and Hyundai pioneered cross-border business projects.
While Kim Jong-il had 20 years to prepare for the communist world’s only dynastic succession, Kim Jong-un has had barely three. Analysts will closely watch the funeral for possible clues about who will have most influence with him.
Kim Jong-un, “great successor to the juche [self-reliance] revolutionary cause and sagacious leader of our party, state, army and people, is at the helm of the Korean revolution,” the North’s news agency reported early yesterday.
South Korean media, basing their predictions on arrangements for the 1994 funeral, said the obsequies would likely begin at 10am today, with Kim Jong-un and senior officials paying final respects at the memorial palace.
They said the military was expected to fire a 24-gun salute and troops would march through central Pyongyang, accompanying a limousine carrying Kim Jong-il’s coffin and another car with a giant photo.
Military marching bands would play funeral music, while convoys of motorcycles and cars carrying flowers and senior officials would follow the coffin as hundreds of thousands look on, the media forecast.
Mourning would officially end tomorrow with a nationwide memorial service including a three-minute silence, the North’s media has reported.
Yesterday, the South Korean delegations, who were to return later today across the heavily fortified border, met the North’s de facto head of state and parliament chief Kim Yong-nam, state media reported.
Lee and Hyun expressed hope that declarations agreed at summits in 2000 and 2007 would be implemented, it said. On their way home, they stopped off at the Kaesong industrial estate just north of the border — the last major joint venture still functioning, the South’s Yonhap news agency reported.
The complex, utilizing the North’s labor in Seoul-owned light industries, has survived high cross-border tensions of recent years.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in