North Korean authorities are preparing a large-scale military parade despite cold weather with temperatures of 10 below zero.
According to a Daily NK source in North Korea on Thursday, the country’s authorities have selected about 30,000 personnel for the parade training.
The selected troops are currently undergoing intensive drills.
In early December, the soldiers had been assembling at the training ground at 10 AM, but since Dec. 15, they wake at 5 AM, finish breakfast by 6 AM and start outdoor training from 7 AM.
Rather than return indoors for lunch, they reportedly have simple meals of rice balls in an outdoor tent.
With daytime highs reaching no more than five below zero, the soldiers must keep their gloves on even as they are eating, according to the source.
They are reportedly training amid inhumane treatment.
For example, they have been ordered to consume as little fluid as possible because they cannot go to the bathroom during training.
They are not even provided warm soup or sufficient water during lunch.
However, they sleep at the April 25 Hotel in Pyongyang’s Sadong District rather than in outdoor tents.
Because the soldiers are training outdoors for more than 10 hours a day in bitterly cold conditions, many are reportedly being hospitalized for frostbite.
With the soldiers standing for long periods of time outdoors in the cold winter, many are urinating blood or complaining of pain from blistered hands and feet.
The source said three times as many participants are washing out during the latest parade training than during training for spring or summer military parades.
If the authorities deem a soldier unfit to continue training, they are immediately returned to their original unit rather than undergoing medical treatment in Pyongyang.
Training for a military parade lasts from four months upwards to a year.
However, for this parade, the soldiers are hurriedly undergoing final assembly training just two months after their units began column training.
Asked by Daily NK when the parade would take place, the source said he could not say for certain “because the timing could change at any time depending on a decision by the Central Committee.”
Still, he said the parade headquarters is training the soldiers “with the belief that the most likely date will be Dec. 30 or midnight of Jan. 1, when the New Year begins.”
If the parade is held between Dec. 30, the date when North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was named the supreme commander of the armed forces, and Jan. 1, this would likely maximize the propaganda effect of the major achievements of Kim’s decade in power — namely, the completion of North Korea’s nuclear capabilities and the legislation of the country’s nuclear weapons policy — rather simply idolize Kim.
This is because by appearing with a line of attack-use nuclear weapons, Kim can publicly project an image as the only man in the country with his finger on the button as supreme commander.
However, because Feb. 8 is the 75th anniversary of the founding of the North Korean army, one cannot exclude the possibility that the soldiers are training for the army foundation day given the great importance North Korea gives fifth and tenth year anniversaries.
The source said, “We can only know the final date when an order comes down from above, but the soldiers are training with the assumption that [the training is almost over].”
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