North Korea is marking the July 8 anniversary of the death of national founder Kim Il Sung by emphasizing careful maintenance of Kim’s portraits, statues and other imagery to prevent damage.
A Daily NK source in South Pyongan Province said Wednesday that the government demanded that officials “take care” of Kim’s images, warning of possible “enemy mischief” around the anniversary of his death. It also called on them to protect images of the Kim family from flood damage.
According to the source, the South Pyongan Province party committee convened an emergency meeting on July 1, during which it designated July a month for gaining a “firm grip” on “political-security activities.” It ordered all public safety and security bodies in the province to “thoroughly defend No. 1 images with their lives.”
“No. 1” refers to the nation’s supreme leaders, past and present.
In particular, the provincial party committee called on the management offices of statues, revolutionary battle sites and revolutionary historical sites to remain constantly vigilant, bolster their efforts to protect their sites and uncover and smash enemy plans for mischief in a timely fashion.
It also called on government bodies, enterprises and schools to mobilize the Worker-Peasant Red Guards and Red Youth Guard to protect the “gains of the revolution,” and on neighborhood watch units to form five-person teams to prevent “even the slightest problems” in efforts to protect images of the Kim family.
Above all, the committee called on people to craft plans to evacuate statues and images of Kim from historical sites and portraits of Kim from private homes when floods from summer rains strike, and for people to stay alert given that reactionaries inside the country could use the time to engage in mischief.
That is to say, the committee told people to keep alert because malcontents could intentionally damage images by, for instance, throwing stones at them and then pretending as if monsoon rains did the damage.
Moreover, the committee told all workplaces to keep detailed daily records of activities to protect images of the Kim family, warning them that it would collect and review all their ledgers on July 10, two days after the anniversary of Kim Il Sung’s death.
The committee also said it would review how well workplace leaders and workplace security officials carried out patrols of statues, historic sites and other imagery through Aug. 24.
“We’re getting more politically priggish orders than usual this year. People say the order for neighborhood watch units to form five-man teams is unprecedented, and for the authorities to suffocate people this way when it has already been hard enough to survive horrifies them,” the source said.
“People don’t know why they are being strangled like this, and are saying that unless they support one another and remain on guard, nobody knows what will happen,” he added.
Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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