PYONGYANG: North Korea’s Kim Jong Un led a remembrance for fallen war heroes Thursday as official commemorations for the 60th anniversary of the Korean War got under way in Pyongyang with the opening of a new memorial for war veterans.
The monument to veterans of the 1950-53 war is the centerpiece of a sprawling national military cemetery in Pyongyang’s outskirts.
Dozens of elderly Chinese soldiers who fought for North Korea joined Thursday’s commemoration. Also present were two US veterans who survived the deadly battle between US troops at the Chinese Red Army in the bloody Chosin Reservoir in November and December 1950.
The ribbon-cutting ceremony was brief. Soldiers from the armed forces stood at guard as a military band played the national anthem. Kim, dressed in a dark blue Mao suit, saluted and left a basket of flowers bearing a banner with his name before the memorial. He did not give a speech, but is anticipated to address the nation at a military parade Saturday.
He was accompanied by top Workers’ Party and Korean People’s Army officials, as well as his aunt, Kim Kyong Hui.
The Korean War, pitting North Korean and Chinese troops against US-led United Nations and South Korean forces, ended with an armistice on July 27, 1953. A peace treaty was never signed, leaving the Korean Peninsula in a technical state of war and divided at the 38th parallel.
That has not stopped the North Koreans from calling July 27 “Victory Day.” Brightly colored banners with the words “Victory” and “War Victory” fluttered from buildings across the capital city. The North Korean government is expected to use the anniversary to rally support for Kim and to draw attention to the division of the Korean Peninsula.
North Korea has been gearing up for months for the milestone war anniversary. Soldiers were assigned to carry out an extensive renovation of the Korean War museum. Students rehearsed every afternoon for a new war-themed rendition of the “Arirang” mass games song-and-dance performance, which opened Tuesday. And citizens got down on their hands and knees in the lead-up to help lay sod and plant grass as part of a massive greenification of Pyongyang.
The anniversary is taking place as North Korea copes with flooding from the seasonal monsoon rains that strike the peninsula every July. Eight people were killed, more than 4,500 homes destroyed and 17,700 left homeless this week, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
And in a reminder of the tensions that still roil the divided peninsula, Pyongyang on Thursday threatened to reposition troops at a stalled inter-Korean factory park at a North Korean border town. The warning, which Pyongyang has made before, came after failed talks to reopen the factory park that was a rare symbol of cooperation between the rivals before it was shuttered in April amid tension.
Scores of foreign visitors began arriving in Pyongyang this week, including a planeload of journalists from the US, Japan, China, Russia and elsewhere. China’s vice president, Li Yuanchao, arrived Thursday.
Among the war veterans who attended Thursday’s ceremony were retired US Navy Capt. Thomas Hudner and Dick Bonelli, a former US Marine, who are in North Korea on a mission to revisit Jangjin County, better known to Americans as the Chosin Reservoir — site of one of the deadliest battles of the Korean War.
“It’s a very emotional occasion to be here with so many veterans — not only the veterans but also the people of the nation who turned out to show their support to all of veterans,” said Hudner, who received the Medal of Honor for trying to save his downed wingman in the Chosin Reservoir in 1950.
“And as an American veteran, I am delighted to see that our former foe and we share some of the same feelings about this,” said Hudner, of Concord, Massachusetts.
One North Korean, Pak Chun Son, sobbed as she paid her respects at the gravestone of her father, Pak Hyon Jong, who died in the war when she was only 5.
“My father will be honored on this hill forever,” said her brother, Pak Yun Yong, who was 8 when his father died. He was dressed in a military uniform weighed down by medals. Tears sprang to his eyes. “We want to raise our children to be patriots like their grandfather was.”
Commemorations also are taking place in South Korea and the United States.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye attended a memorial event Tuesday in the southern city of Busan to pay her respects to the troops who defended South Korea during the war.
US President Barack Obama is to give a speech Saturday at the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington.
N. Korea’s Kim leads tribute to fallen war heroes
