North Korea said Thursday that a group of foreign activists that plans to walk across the inter-Korean border “praised” the North’s founder Kim Il-sung during their visit there.
About 30 female activists from around the world, including U.S. activist Gloria Steinem and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Maguire, arrived in Pyongyang on Tuesday, planning to march from the North to the South across the Demilitarized Zone to deliver a message of peace on May 24. A legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, the DMZ bisects the peninsula.
North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun, the communist party’s official newspaper, on Thursday carried an article and photo of their visit to the birthplace of the late leader in Pyongyang.
The newspaper reported that Maguire said she was “highly touched” after learning about the late leader’s revolutionary life.
It also quoted Korean-American Eun-hee Ahn as saying that Kim devoted his entire life to the freedom and emancipation of North Koreans.
The activists’ upcoming trek has spurred rows here as some critics said that their move will not help resolve the pressing issues of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and human rights violations.
Touching on what could be seen as pro-North Korean remarks, Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, said that North Korea has a tendency to use outsiders’ visits to the North for propaganda.
“There is a need to focus on the purpose of their upcoming event,” he added.
South Korea has decided to allow the foreign activists to cross the heavily fortified inter-Korean border, but recommended they use a western land route instead of walking through the truce village of Panmunjom. Seoul has also advised them to cross the border by car, not on foot.
The truce village sits in the middle of the DMZ, which is guarded by stone-faced soldiers on each side of the military demarcation line.
But despite Seoul’s opposition, the group said the activists will stick to their plan to walk across through the truce village as their peace message should be delivered at a place with a symbolic legacy of the conflict.
“South Korea has decided not to allow journalists to cover the event at the DMZ,” said a government official. “If the government permits reporters to cover it at the truce village, the move could be seen as official approval for the activists’ DMZ crossing.”
The activists said that the purpose of the DMZ crossing is to express hope that Korean families separated by the Korean War will be united someday and military tensions between the two sides can be reduced.
Seoul has said that the planned event should be made in a way that does not spark unintended tension on the Korean Peninsula, raising concerns that it could be politicized by the North. (Yonhap)
