On this day in 1914 a God was born. His name was Kim II Sung, born to a Christian family; his father a preacher. For more than 60 years, the Kim dynasty has ruled North Korea. For all these years and even today, April 15th is celebrated as the day of the flower. The flower represents love, peace, wisdom and justice.
Under his rule and then that of his son Kim jong-il, the Kim dynasty has amassed a fortune. While Kim jong-il dined on the finest caviar, his people starved. This was in 1994, years after the food rations from the Soviet Union stopped in the late 80s. That year was followed by floods.
The international donor community gave the dynasty 2.5 billion USD and still it is estimated that hundreds of thousands perished. So here we are, 16 years later. From space, North Korea is blacked out. The lights of Seoul farther south shine, brilliant – a reminder of the backwardness and total isolation of a regime and a man, paranoid beyond belief – guilty of so many atrocities.
Nancy Heikin was at her screening last night. She had just released her film, Kimjongilia – a documentary about North Korea. She interviewed those lucky enough to have escaped.
“Hunger is the worst feeling of all,” says a young man who managed, beyond all odds, to escape from Yodok Prison camp where he had been born.
The United Nations General Assembly report in September of last year described human rights in this dark nation as “abysmal.”
Famine, arbitrary arrests, political prisoners, no free media or political opposition and worst of all, complete impunity – these are daily realities that North Koreans have to face.
