North Korea’s eternal president lives on
| FEATURE |
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PYONGYANG — Kim Il-Sung lives on.
Sixteen years after the death of communist North Korea’s founding father, the “Great Leader” survives through a cult of personality with Messianic overtones.
His smiling, bespectacled face adorns billboards, songs in his praise echo across Pyongyang day and night, and grand monuments to his exploits dominate the run-down city.
The impoverished nation is to hold its biggest political meeting in decades on Tuesday, which North Korea watchers expect will pave the way for a transfer of power from the late leader’s son Kim Jong-Il to his grandson, Kim Jong-Un.
But in the capital there are no visible signs of the expected accession of the younger Kim, who is believed to be around 27, to top posts in the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea.
The public focus remains on Kim Il-Sung, whom one biographer called “The Benevolent Sun.”
“I still feel he’s here, because the Great Leader is always in my heart,” says army First Lieutenant Ri, a female guide at a museum devoted to the North’s “great victory” in the Korean War which left the peninsula divided..... MORE
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100928com6.html
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