North Korea Forces 120,000 People to March in Anti-American, Pro-Nuke Rally

TOPSHOT - In this photo taken on June 25, 2023, residents of Pyongyang hold banners that r
KIM WON JIN/AFP via Getty
Frances Martel

The communist government of North Korea boasted, through its state media arms, on Tuesday of orchestrating a massive rally in Pyongyang to mark the anniversary of the Korean War, declaring America the sole actor responsible for the war and celebrating that the communists “have firmly grasped” nuclear weapons.

The rally reportedly took place on Sunday in the nation’s capital, alongside dozens of similar mandatory events throughout the country. South Korea, too, marked the anniversary of the Korean War with more somber events honoring the veterans who fought in the war and the upwards of 20 nations, primarily the United States, that helped Seoul thwart a communist takeover.

The Korean War erupted when North Korea, under founder and communist cult leader Kim Il-sung, invaded South Korea in an attempt to consolidate his totalitarian rule across the entire peninsula.

Active hostilities lasted three years until the two sides – South Korea and America on one side, and North Korea and China on the other – signed an armistice agreement. Neither side has ever signed a truce or surrender so, despite the war not being hot in 70 years, the parties remain in a formal state of war.

In this photo taken on June 25, 2023, a banner that reads “The whole US mainland is in our striking range!” is seen as residents of Pyongyang attend a mass rally to mark the “Day of Struggle Against US Imperialism”, on the 73rd anniversary of the Korean War. (KIM WON JIN/AFP via Getty)

The North Korean government newspaper Rodong Sinmun declared in its coverage of the rally that North Korea “suffered bitter pain and misfortune due to the U.S. imperialists’ war provocation of aggression.” The 120,000 “working people and youth and students” forced to attend the rally listened to speeches declaring that relations between Washington and Pyongyang would never normalize, as the communists carry “the wounds of grudge [sic] that can never be healed.”

North Korea mandates the observance of June 25 as the “Day of Struggle Against U.S. Imperialism.”

Images from the event show thousands of residents packed into a local stadium, watching marchers carry communist banners around what appears to be a track and field facility. Those in the stadium held aloft propaganda posters featuring communist soldiers and banners reading anti-American slogans.

Rodong Sinmun noted that a highlight of the event was a celebration of North Korea’s illegal nuclear weapons program. The speakers, it relayed, “said that the Korean people have firmly grasped the strongest absolute weapon to punish the U.S. imperialists and the war deterrence for self-defence which no enemy dare provoke, true to the Party’s idea of building up the military capability for self-defense as they keenly realized that only when the army is strong, genuine peace and everything on this land can be defended.”

“War deterrence” and “self-defense” are common euphemisms in North Korea propaganda for nuclear weapons.

“If we had strong power, there would have been no such deep-rooted enmity as June 25 and the land of the motherland would not have been stained with innocent blood, they said,” the newspaper added.

The speakers reportedly encouraged North Koreans to “settle accounts with the U.S. imperialists” and take revenge on enemy [sic] will give merciless punishment [sic] and thorough eradication to the U.S. imperialists, the sworn enemy of the Korean people by resolute sacred war [sic] of revenge.”

Rodong Sinmun reported that smaller festivities took place across North Korea. The North Korean Foreign Ministry also observed the anniversary of the war by publishing a “research report” blaming America exclusively for the Korean War.

“The U.S. is a wrecker of peace and stability on the Korean peninsula and in the region,” the state report paraphrased the “report” as stating on Tuesday. The report also claimed that leftist American President Joe Biden was “more openly pursuing the inveterate attempt for mounting a preemptive nuclear attack on the DPRK in cahoots with the south Korean puppet regime led by Yoon Suk Yeol hell-bent on sycophancy toward the U.S.”

Residents of Pyongyang gesture as they attend a mass rally to mark the “Day of Struggle Against US Imperialism”, on the 73rd anniversary of the three-year Korean War, which began on June 25, 1950, at the Mayday Stadium in Pyongyang. (KIM WON JIN/AFP via Getty)

The newspaper did not cite any source, other than the Foreign Ministry report, for evidence that Biden was planning to preemptively drop nuclear bombs on North Korea.

“If a war breaks out on the Korean peninsula located in an important geopolitical position, where the interests of big powers are intermingled, it will rapidly expand into a world war and a thermonuclear war unprecedented in the world,” Rodong Sinmun warned.
In Seoul, South Koreans marked the anniversary of the war by honoring several veterans for extraordinary contributions to protecting the homeland from communists. The Korean JoongAng Daily reported that about 250 Korean War veterans, including some foreign fighters, attended a ceremony to honor them and issue order of merits posthumously to some fighters. JoongAng reported that the ceremony also honored the missing in action, which total about 120,000 people.

“During the three-year war, 150,000 UN forces including 130,000 U.S. soldiers, and 620,000 South Korean soldiers were killed, missing, or injured,” South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said in a statement this weekend. “We must never forget the blood and tears shed by veterans and their families.”

North Korean defectors and anti-communist activists in South Korea also marked the day by floating balloons with anti-communist leaflets and medicine towards the North, a practice that Yoon’s predecessor, the leftist Moon Jae-in, had outlawed. The group Fighters for a Free North Korea reported sending over “some 200,000 leaflets, 10,000 face masks, Tylenol pills and booklets from Gimpo, west of Seoul,” the Yonhap news agency reported.

Fighters for a Free North Korea sued the government after President Moon banned sending leaflets and food to the North in 2020. The Korea Herald noted that Moon acted to ban the practice after communist dictator Kim Jong-un’s sister, Kim Yo-jong, specifically demanded it.

The South Korean Supreme Court overturned Moon’s ban on balloons to the North in May.

“The Supreme Court ruled that sending leaflets into North Korea plays a positive role in showing North Koreans the reality of their nation’s regime, calling attention to their human rights situation,” the Herald reported.

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