As the country marked the 73rd anniversary of the start of the Korean War , Tens of thousands of North Koreans marched in anti-U.S. rallies over the weekend, pledging “merciless” revenge against “U.S. imperialists,” , state media said Monday.
The nation’s capital witnessed large-scale protests on Sunday. It drew more than 120,000 people, according to the official Korean Central News Agency of North Korea.
While North Korea launched a surprise attack that started the 1950–1953 Korean war , Pyongyang demonstrators supported their government’s account of what happened and charged the US with starting it and leaving the Korean people with “wounds… that can never be healed.”
South Korea
Meanwhile in South Korea, a North Korean defector-turned-activist said he flew balloons. It carried some 200,000 anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets and COVID-19 medical supplies across the border Sunday night, continuing his yearslong campaigns. This campaigns have often triggered angry responses from the North.
Photos sent by Park Sang-hak showed a placard with a picture of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un . This is along with a message that highlighted how his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, was responsible for starting the Korean War. The North has not commented on Park’s latest ballooning stint.
North Korea is extremely sensitive about any outside attempt to undermine Kim’s leadership and weaken his absolute control over the country’s 26 million people.
At the rallies Sunday, North Koreans also expressed pride in Kim’s activities. This includes expanding nuclear weapons and missile programs. They insisted their country now has the “strongest absolute weapon to punish the U.S. imperialists . Also they think they have war deterrence for self-defense which no enemy dare provoke.”
North’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper published photos of the rally. It showed a stadium packed with likely tens of thousands of people in COVID-19 masks. They raised their fists in the air and holding signs that read: “Let’s eradicate U.S. imperialist invaders” and “The entire U.S. mainland is within our striking range.”