Train blast victims died saving leaders' portraits
Simon Jeffery and agencies
Wednesday April 28, 2004
North Korea's state-run media today claimed that many of the 161 people who died in last week's train explosion in the town of Ryongchon had struggled heroically in the last moments of their lives to save portraits of the ruling family.
The claims - from a country that enforces leader worship with prison camps - came as Pyongyang issued fresh pleas for international aid. UN medics allowed to visit the victims have reported severe burns and eye injuries among the survivors, who numbered more than 1,300.
The blast also caused an estimated $356m (£200m) worth of damage to houses and public buildings in the town of Ryongchon, according to the offical KCNA news agency. This figure is much larger than the amount promised by international donors to aid the town's recovery and has fuelled speculation that North Korea is trying to gain as much aid as possible.
In one of the stories of the dead told by KCNA - effectively the state's mouthpiece - Han Jong-suk, 56, a teacher, saved the lives of seven children but died rescuing pictures of Kim Jong-il and his late father, Kim Il-sung.
Two other of the dead, Choe Yong-il and Jon Tong-sik, were on a lunch break but rushed back to work on hearing the explosion, according to KCNA. "They were buried under the collapsing building to die a heroic death when they were trying to come out with portraits of President Kim Il-sung and leader Kim Jong-il," it said.
Though dead, Kim Il-sung is still considered head of state, with his son the official "dear leader" and "Great General". Portraits of the two are mandatory fixtures in every home, office and factory in the hardline communist state of 23 million. All adults are required to wear lapel pins bearing images of one or both Kims.
The prison diaries of North Korean defectors refer to people imprisoned for accidentally defacing portraits of the Kims. Kim Jong-il, 62, inherited power upon his father's death in 1994 in the communist world's only case of hereditary succession.
The KCNA report, which went to claim that many people rescued the portraits before their family members, could not be independently verified.
A team of foreign aid workers who today visited Ryongchon reported thousands of people were living in tents without adequate sanitation or water. Hospitals were lacking basic supplies such as intravenous drips to treat the burn patients, antibiotics and eye drops.
Dr Eigil Sorensen, a representative for the World Health Organisation who yesterday saw burn victims, said he feared many of the 370 most seriously injured could at least become blind in one eye.
The United States, China, Australia and Japan are among nations that have offered aid, and Germany said it would donate $119,000 to buy food and building materials. A first instalment of Russian relief aid - including medicine, tents and blankets - arrived today, according to KCNA.
Chronically short of fuel, electricity and food, North Korea has taken most of the aid offered, but it has been hesitant to accept help from South Korea.
It rejected offers from the rival south to send doctors but did ask it for building materials, bulldozers and diesel fuel. Pyongyang also refused to allow South Korean trucks to deliver the aid overland and insisted on a much longer sea route. The two countries are technically still at war and North Korea is jumpy about incursions over the border, one of the most heavily militarised in the world.
The first consignment - which arrived at port today - is expected to have delivered medicines, blankets, underwear, instant noodles, bottled water and clothes by tomorrow morning.
North Korea says the explosion occurred when workers knocked train cars carrying oil and chemicals against power lines.
Words fail me as to the crassness of this propaganda shit.
For those who believe, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not, no explanation will suffice.
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I stopped reading after the first paragraph ... why hasn't their been a coup in this shithole already? This guy is ripe for one.
Η ζωή, η ζωή εδω τελειώνει!
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Vympel wrote:That is truly disgusting, vile, utterly base propaganda, devoid of even the minor redeeming quality of being clever.
I am neither an expert on the Stalinist mindset nor propaganda, but do they REALLY think this kind of bullshit will fly?
If only there was some way to oust these scum without killing the very people that are meant to be freed (not to mention NK's backlash against SK and Japan).
For those who believe, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not, no explanation will suffice.
Men don't follow titles, they follow courage!
________________________________________
Master of Ossus wrote:Do they seriously think anyone will believe this? Anyone at all? Either in NK or abroad?
In North Korea they believe it. The people there are so backward and downtrodden that when questioned, the average North Korean thinks there are five countries in the world.
Vympel wrote:In North Korea they believe it. The people there are so backward and downtrodden that when questioned, the average North Korean thinks there are five countries in the world.
Having been stationed in Korea, I can tell you without a doubt that those within North Korea believe it. They are indoctrinated from birth and cut off from all outside information sources. They hear only what Pyongang wants them to hear, and nothing more. North Korean soldiers are indoctrinated to avoid capture by US forces at all costs, or the US soldiers will drink their blood.
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Crown wrote:I stopped reading after the first paragraph ... why hasn't their been a coup in this shithole already? This guy is ripe for one.
Because your average North Korean citizen is a mindless drone and willing slave of the Great Leader, as they were raised from birth to be. There are probably no citizens left there who are not mindless drones, because all those who can think for themselves have either been "dissapeared" by KJI's secret police or have defected to other countries...
Shroom Man 777 wrote:Am I the only one who is amused by this?
I too would be laughing at the utter stupidity of that propaganda release, if only I wasn't so thoroughly disgusted by it .
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"Making fun of born-again Christians is like hunting dairy cows with a high powered rifle and scope." --P.J. O'Rourke
"A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." --J.S. Mill
Like jegs stated..the NK believe it as the utter truth that these men died that way.
Anywhere else...much of it is bullshit of the highest order. Still sad they won't accept much help from the South, because of the current state of affairs and sadly too much of the article is still true of the sheer hold the Kim family has on the affairs of all North Koreans
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Sometimes we can choose the path we follow. Sometimes our choices are made for us. And sometimes we have no choice at all
I'm studying for the CPA exam. Have a nice summer, and if you're down just sit back and realize that Joe is off somewhere, doing much worse than you are.
Vympel wrote:In North Korea they believe it. The people there are so backward and downtrodden that when questioned, the average North Korean thinks there are five countries in the world.
Having been stationed in Korea, I can tell you without a doubt that those within North Korea believe it. They are indoctrinated from birth and cut off from all outside information sources. They hear only what Pyongang wants them to hear, and nothing more. North Korean soldiers are indoctrinated to avoid capture by US forces at all costs, or the US soldiers will drink their blood.
Oh, Puh-LEASE! Do you have nothing to contribute but spam and personal attacks against other board members?
The M2HB: The Greatest Machinegun Ever Made.
HAB: Crew-Served Weapons Specialist
"Making fun of born-again Christians is like hunting dairy cows with a high powered rifle and scope." --P.J. O'Rourke
"A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." --J.S. Mill
Vympel wrote:In North Korea they believe it. The people there are so backward and downtrodden that when questioned, the average North Korean thinks there are five countries in the world.
Having been stationed in Korea, I can tell you without a doubt that those within North Korea believe it. They are indoctrinated from birth and cut off from all outside information sources. They hear only what Pyongang wants them to hear, and nothing more. North Korean soldiers are indoctrinated to avoid capture by US forces at all costs, or the US soldiers will drink their blood.
Wait ... you mean US soldiers don't drink the blood of North Koreans?
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
Man that's so low i can i hear it hitting rock bottom.
no wait ... that's it drilling through rock bottom .
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Vympel wrote:In North Korea they believe it. The people there are so backward and downtrodden that when questioned, the average North Korean thinks there are five countries in the world.
Having been stationed in Korea, I can tell you without a doubt that those within North Korea believe it. They are indoctrinated from birth and cut off from all outside information sources. They hear only what Pyongang wants them to hear, and nothing more. North Korean soldiers are indoctrinated to avoid capture by US forces at all costs, or the US soldiers will drink their blood.
I bet YOU do drink blood.
I'm sure that sounded really clever in your head, chief, but when heard by others, not so much.
BoTM / JL / MM / HAB / VRWC / Horseman
I'm studying for the CPA exam. Have a nice summer, and if you're down just sit back and realize that Joe is off somewhere, doing much worse than you are.
Master of Ossus wrote:Do they seriously think anyone will believe this? Anyone at all? Either in NK or abroad?
In North Korea they believe it. The people there are so backward and downtrodden that when questioned, the average North Korean thinks there are five countries in the world.
Holy shit! Those must be the US, China, NK, South Korea, and Japan. JESUS! They've never even heard of Germany or the UK? That's horrible!
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Darth Wong wrote:
Wait ... you mean US soldiers don't drink the blood of North Koreans?
You only drink your enemy's blood to absorb his power, and given the half starved state of the North Korean army that's hardly worthwhile.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
Words fail me as to the crassness of this propaganda shit.
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