Sino-NK

“A Storm of Fire Ready to Engulf all Traitors”: The Recent DPRK Mass Youth Rallies

by David Matthew

Rallies covered the entire length of North Korea during the first week of March, with people from all backgrounds calling for “holy war” against South Korea and its prime minister, Lee Myung-bak. These events were set off by the March 2nd release of a statement by the Ri Yong-ho of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) Supreme Command. Incensed over the recent war games being conducted between the United States and South Korea, the DPRK high command has let its feelings be seen most forcefully by demonstrations in the streets. Some of the loudest and most raucous of these street demonstrations have been conducted by North Korea’s youth, with large crowds demanding blood even at top institutions like Kim Il-sung University and Kim Chaek University of Technology.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) describes a rally held on March 5th before the sculpture of Victory in Pyongyang as a mishmash of violent cries and patriotic sloganeering. This particular demonstration was led, in part, by Kim Il-sung Socialist Youth League leader Ri Yong-chol. While a number of other party officials are mentioned as being there and presenting speeches, the more interesting speakers listed are university and secondary school students. KCNA provides a general idea of what these speeches consisted of: calls for the death of the “Lee Myung Bak group” and also for military enlistment and re-enlistment.

War Memorial in Pyongyang | Image courtesy John Pavelka

Call to Arms | In the generic amalgam of the speeches recreated by KCNA the youth are encouraged to follow in the spirit of North Korean heroes “Ri Su-bok and Kil Yong-jo”. A helpful explanation of what these North Korean heroes represent to their country comesfrom Russian North Korea expert Andrei Lankov. Ri fought in the Korean war and was killed when he seemingly took out a machine gun by conducting a frontal assault upon it, an action that allowed his fellow soldiers to live. Kil was a North Korean pilot who, after finding himself in a malfunctioning jet that was bound to crash, flew it away from land to ensure that it would not crash into and kill Koreans on the ground. Both names are therefore meant to conjure up ideas of sacrificing for the whole, which in the case of North Korea’s youth, means joining the military and being willing to fight to the death against a Lee Myung-bak led South.

Oddly, an entirely separate KCNA article gives more in-depth detail about what was said at the rally by Ri Yong-chol. After positing that the dignity of the “supreme leadership” is more valuable than their (youths’) lives, there is a repetition of the ideas expressed in the other article. Namely, Lee Myung-bak is a traitor, the actions of his government have offended the DPRK leadership, and North Korean youth will fight to the death. The most fascinating element of the argument in both articles is that South Korea is full of “warmongers” and is the cause of conflict between the two states, even as speech after speech mentioned by KCNA depicts a gruesome fight to the death.

Outcome and Meaning of the Rallies | Rodong Sinmun gives some insight into the end result of all of these patriotic outbursts as it reports that “1,747,493 young people” attempted to join or rejoin the KPA in the three day period from the time the KPA Supreme Command released its statement on March 2nd to the day the article was written. While this and the other large numbers listed by Rodong Sinmun might be a bit exaggerated, it does go a long way to demonstrate that the cult of Kim Jong-un is alive and well in the DPRK.

It also is a reminder of the large gap between the way the outside world perceives North Korea and the way that its citizens perceive themselves. While this article by Reuters and other publications gets the facts right, it puts the rallies and demonstrations within the context of the deal between the North Korean government and the United States. How this deal was portrayed by internal media to North Koreans remains an open question, but as the rallies show, activities in South Korea weigh far more heavily on their minds than the nuclear weapons test suspension does.