While North Korea was seeing Kim Jong Il off with a massive parade in wintery Pyongyang this afternoon, there have also been smaller events going on around the country.
A Yangkang Province source explained to Daily NK this lunchtime, “We had the General’s memorial service in the square in front of Kim Jong Suk Art Theater. Every provincial cadre from the provincial Party, municipal Party, provincial People’s Committee and provincial People’s Safety Agency was there alongside all the people, Union of Democratic Women members and university students, taking part as one.”
According to the source, local Party office cadres personally went around People’s Units on the evening of the 27th, checking on event participation and reminding people to be at events and not to so much as imagine going to the market instead.
The source commented further, “Provincial organs, enterprises and social groups have been ordered to hang banners after today’s memorial service but before the holding of a central commemoration event on the 29th with the slogan, ‘With Respected Comrade Kim Jong Eun, Let’s Defend the Party Central Committee with Our Lives!’”
Local artists have reportedly been asked to help produce the banners.
However, almost all Party organs, factories and enterprises already have similar banners bearing the name Kim Jong Il, a slogan that was born in October, 1995 on army bases. The result is apparently confusion and fear.
The source said, “They don’t know whether to take down the existing slogan about the General or set the two side by side. Lower Party units have absolutely no idea how to proceed, and are watching others closely in fear of getting into trouble.”
