Tributes and pledges as N Korea marks Kim Il Sung’s birthday

PYONGYANG: Tens of thousands of North Koreans turned out to pay tribute to their leaders on Monday, the most important day of the isolated, nuclear-armed country’s ritual calendar.

In the North April 15 is known as the Day of the Sun, the anniversary of the 1912 birth of the country’s founder Kim Il Sung, whose son Kim Jong Il succeeded him and grandson Kim Jong Un, the current leader, inherited power in turn.

North Koreans are taught from birth to revere the Kim family and the ceremonies surrounding such occasions are one of the ways in which authorities reinforce loyalty. From early morning, a steady stream of citizens arrived at Mansu hill in Pyongyang, where giant bronze statues of the two elder Kims look out over the capital.

Platoons of soldiers, staff of work units, families, newlyweds and tourists all lined up before the images, advancing to place flowers at their base. "Let us pay tribute to the great president Kim Il Sung and the great leader Kim Jong Il," intoned an announcer half-hidden by floral baskets, and all bowed in unison, the troops saluting.

Retired colonel Ra Man Ok, 84, wiped tears from her eyes as she stood before the statues, took a few paces backwards still facing the images, and bowed an extra, second time. "I want to pay tribute with my spirit to the great leaders because I am too old to repay their benevolence with my labour," she told AFP, wearing the uniform in which she had marched in a military parade decades ago. "My motto is that everybody can realise their hopes only by following the leadership of our party through all trials and difficulties."

Ordinary North Koreans always express wholehearted support for the authorities when speaking to foreign media. In pride of place before the statues, cordoned off with a chain, stood a giant floral tribute in the name of Kim Jong Un.