Glorifying Kim Il Sung

The Internet is bombarded with posts praising North Korea’s late founder Kim Il Sung as “a prominent national leader” and “the great father of all people” in the run-up to "Sun Day,” Kim`s birthday that falls on April 15. In the past, such messages were posted only on pro-North Korea websites but this year, they are appearing on South Korean portal sites en masse. It is ridiculous for incumbent North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, who rules with an iron fist and inherited power from his father, and his followers to call Kim Il Sung “the sun of the nation.” Even more regrettable, however, is that pro-North Korea forces in South Korea are attempting to idolize Kim Il Sung in going beyond glorifying him. What are South Korean supervisory authorities doing about this?

Kim Il Sung was a war criminal who killed millions of Koreans and damaged the Korean Peninsula by starting the Korean War in cooperation with Soviet Union dictator Josef Stalin and Chinese leader Mao Zedong. Kim Il Sung is also the person who turned the North into an autocratic and nepotistic kingdom and a military state by going against the times. His son began developing nuclear weapons that can hit the peninsula with radioactive materials more harmful than those from Japan`s crippled nuclear power plant. At a time when people around the world are enjoying democracy, the North`s 24 million people are starving to death and suffering at concentration camps. Calling the person who is responsible for such a horrible condition “the sun of the nation” is absolutely preposterous.

Kim Il Sung promised his people rice, meat soup and decent houses but they are now literally surviving on herbal roots and tree bark. David Austin of the global aid agency Mercy Corps, who recently visited the North at the invitation of Pyongyang, said Monday on National Public Radio of the U.S. that a three-year-old North Korean child ate wild grass or twigs but her stomach could not digest them. “She weighed about 15 or 16 pounds and was completely unresponsive during our visit. That child probably won`t make it," he said. This is heartbreaking given that a three-year-old girl in South Korea weighs 33 pounds on average.

Regardless of ideology, the lives of the people are important. The North Korean economy was in tatters when Kim Il Sung died in 1994 and 3 million North Koreans starved to death during the famine in the mid-1990s. The North under Kim Jong Il could subsist on aid from liberal South Korean administrations led by Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun, but the communist country is now in a dire condition due to international sanctions for its nuclear development and attacks on the South Korean naval vessel Cheonan and Yeonpyeong Island. The U.N. recently said about 6 million North Koreans are on the brink of starvation.

Who spreads messages commending Kim Il Sung, a heinous criminal who generated this hell-like condition in the North, as a prominent national leader and congratulating his birthday and praying for the repose of his soul? Is this the act of a North Korean cyber unit, pro-North Korea forces in the South, or reckless netizens? Such postings cannot be considered freedom of expression. If this is the act of pro-North Korea forces in South Korea, they must be uprooted. If this a mischievous act of children, leaders, intellectuals and teachers of South Korea should wake up and assume responsibility for this situation.