THE EMBASSY OF THE DEMOCRATIC
PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF KOREA TO SWITZERLAND
Pourtalésstrasse 43 Tel: +41-31 951 6621
3074 Muri/Bern Switzerland Fax: +41-31 951 5704
E-mail: dprk.embassy@bluewin.ch
No. 68/22 August 15, 2022
1. Anecdotes of the Days of the Anti-Japanese Struggle
2. Press Statement of DPRK Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs
3. Press Statement of Spokesperson of Korean Committee on Measures for Sexual Slavery for Japanese Army and Drafting Victims
4. Nocturnal View of Pyongyang
Anecdotes of the Days of the Anti-Japanese Struggle
Commander Is also a Son of the People
One day in early April, 1933, the guerilla unit led by Kim Il Sung was having a rest in front of a farmer’s house in the vicinity of Liangshuiquanzi on the shore of the Tuman River.
There was a wounded soldier in the unit. The guerrillas wanted to bring him into a warm room and knocked at the door of the house. But there was no answer.
Kim Il Sung covered the wounded soldier with his overcoat and took an axe to chop firewood.
Following him, some soldiers swept the yard and others hurried to make fire to prepare a meal.
Having never seen the guerrillas before, the host of the house and his wife had taken the guerrillas for Japanese soldiers and hid themselves inside the house. But after seeing what the guerrillas were doing, they ran out of the house.
Kim Il Sung courteously said hello to the old man, offered him a cigarette and asked about the living conditions of his family.
He asked why they, apparently old-time farmers, were not raising chickens and could not buy fur caps for their children.
The man answered that it was because they were ill-starred.
Kim Il Sung explained that it was all because of the inhuman exploitation and plunder by the Japanese imperialists and landlords that the Koreans and Chinese were living in poverty like his family, and that the only way to be well off was to fight against the Japanese imperialists.
Before leaving the house, Kim Il Sung gave some money to the old man.
It was only at that time when the old man came to know that he was General Kim Il Sung. He was surprised that the commander had chopped firewood himself.
With a smile on his face Kim Il Sung said: The commander is also a son of the people; why should I not do what others do?
Price of Potato Paid
In the second half of April 1933, the food situation in the Wangqing guerrilla zone was very difficult.
Two guerrillas who had been dispatched on a mission to obtain food had to come back with empty hands for the enemy’s control was strict. After thinking much, they went to a harvested potato field. While digging the frozen earth hoping to collect remaining potatoes, they happened to find a potato cellar.
They could not find the owner of the cellar, so they came back to the guerrilla zone each carrying a sack of potatoes.
On learning this, Kim Il Sung called the soldiers to him, and said: There is a strict rule in the guerrilla army which should never be violated in any circumstances however harsh they might be; it is the revolutionary discipline with regard to the masses of the people; how can we be called an army for the people and revolution if we lay hand on the people’s property on the excuse that our food situation is difficult; when we founded the Anti-Japanese People’s Guerrilla Army, we named it so in the sense that we should not forget the people even a moment, and put forward the revolutionary slogan “As fish cannot live without water, so the guerrillas cannot live without the people”; we should never put our hands on the property of the people even though we should die of hunger and cold; this is the strict rule of the guerrilla army which is made up of the sons and daughters of the people and fights for the interests of the people.
As they were remorseful for what they had done, Kim Il Sung told them to find the owner of the potato cellar, apologize to him and generously pay him for the potatoes.
It took them a long time to find the owner. They apologized to him and offered him a liberal amount of money for the potatoes even though he declined.
Price of an Axe Paid
It happened when the anti-Japanese guerrilla army was staying for several days in a village called Liangshuiquanzi on the shore of the Tuman River.
Kim Il Sung stayed in the house of an old Chinese man. Every morning he would wake up earlier than the host and hostess, clean the house inside and outside, go to the Tuman and bring water from the hole he made on the frozen river.
One early morning he went to the river to fetch water. It was a very cold day and the water hole was frozen hard. When he had nearly finished making a hole in the ice, the head of the axe slipped from the handle and fell into the hole.
He raked about for hours with a long pole with hooked prongs on its end, but it was in vain because the river was so deep. Though it had happened while he was doing the host a favour, he did not give up his search.
His soldiers told him that it would do if they paid the host for the axe.
Kim Il Sung said to them that no amount of money would be able to make up for the host’s loss of his cherished tool. He continued to search for the axe, but he could not find it.
Having nothing else to do, he generously paid the host for the axe and apologized to him again.
In May 1959, he asked a group of visitors to the battlefields of the anti-Japanese armed struggle in northeast China to find the whereabouts of the old man and apologize once again in his place.
Press Statement of DPRK Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs
According to a news report, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited south Korea recently and remarked that he "expresses full support for the complete, verifiable and irretrievable denuclearization (CVID) of the DPRK" and that "this target is important in achieving the regional peace and stability."
I cannot but express deep regret over the said remarks of the UN secretary-general that grossly lack impartiality and fairness and go against the obligations of his duty, specified in the UN Charter, as regards the issue of the Korean peninsula.
So far, we had never expected that the successive UN secretary-generals including the previous one, except an exceedingly few ones, would be able to speak for our fair stand on the issue of the Korean peninsula without prejudice, for their political inclinations and work backgrounds, and the same goes even now.
However, the recent remarks of the UN secretary-general can never go down with us, and we make it clear that they cannot represent the impartial stand of the international community.
It is clearly specified in the UN Charter that the UN secretary-general should not request or accept orders from the government of a specific country but refrain from doing any act that may impair his or her position as an international official who is liable only to the UN.
The so-called CVID, touted by the U.S. and its vassal forces, is just an infringement upon the sovereignty of the DPRK as it demands the unilateral disarmament, and Secretary-General Guterres perhaps knows well that the DPRK has totally rejected it without any toleration.
Nevertheless, he raised the antiquated story of "CVID". The fact goes to prove that the UN secretary-general shows sympathy to the anti-DPRK hostile policy of the U.S. and its vassal forces, out of his post.
To make clear once again, the DPRK's access to nuclear weapons is its inevitable choice to defend the security of its state and people and ensure its independent development from the hostile policy and nuclear threat and blackmail of the U.S. which has imposed untold misfortune and sufferings on the Korean nation for the past seventy-odd years.
The history of confrontation between the DPRK and the U.S. shows that the durable peace and stability in the Korean peninsula can never be ensured unless the U.S., the world's biggest nuclear weapons state and the world's only nuclear criminal, abandons its illegal and cruel, hostile policy towards the DPRK completely and irrevocably.
The secretary-general, the chief of the UN body which has to regard international justice and equality of sovereignty as the fundamental principle of its activities, should always maintain fairness, impartiality and objectivity in the international affairs including the issue of the Korean peninsula in any case.
We advise Secretary-General Guterres to be careful in making such dangerous words and deeds as pouring gasoline on flames, instead of doing things helpful to the settlement of the issue under the extremely acute situation on the Korean peninsula.
Press Statement of Spokesperson of Korean Committee on Measures for Sexual Slavery for Japanese Army and Drafting Victims
Pyongyang, August 15 (KCNA) -- The spokesperson of Korean Committee on Measures for the Sexual Slavery for Japanese Army and Drafting Victims issued the following press statement on August 15:
77 years have passed since the end of World War II which was deeply recorded as the biggest disaster in human history.
Though a long time equivalent to the whole life of man passed, people are remembering the truth and conveying it to the rising generation while recollecting the time.
This is because they are doing so in order not to suffer from sufferings once again by remembering forever the lessons left by the world war and sincerely building a peaceful, equal and harmonious world.
However, there is a country which is trying to repeat the bloody past, not learning anything in the lessons of history. It is none other than Japan.
Japan should have been more honest and sincere in liquidating the past crimes than any other countries as the murderous ringleader that plunged Asia in blood and the most despicable war criminal state in the world. But it has not discharged its legal and moral obligation for the past liquidation till now, over half of the century since it was defeated.
It has never liquidated even a bit though it deprived the Korean nation of their language and letters, surnames and names and even their dressing and customs, destroyed and plundered fabulous national treasures and cultural treasures and caused astronomically huge economic losses while enforcing the 40-odd year-long colonial fascist rule after occupying Korea with arms.
Moreover, the Japanese imperialists forcibly walked away more than 8.4 million young and middle-aged Koreans, killed at least one million Koreans, kidnapped over 200 000 Korean women to take them for sexual slaves of the Imperial Japanese Army. This grudge can never be settled generation after generation as the hideous unethical crimes with no statute of limitation.
Nevertheless, in Japan dietmen throng to the Yasukuni Shrine to "remember" the war criminals who were punished naturally while justifying the past aggression and distorting the historic facts, Hinomaru and Kimigayo, the legacies of Japanese imperialism, was instituted as "national flag" and "anthem" and the rising generation have been taught with textbooks beautified with their criminal acts.
This tells that Japan, the defeated country of the Second World War, has not yet gotten rid of the wild ambition of the dominator and leader of Asia.
Now, Japan has made all preparations after laying social foundation to turn itself into a military giant while massively fabricating and spreading the "threat story" of the DPRK. It is trying to remove the last stumbling block in its reinvasion by retrogressively revising the defunct "pacifist constitution".
Japan is creating chauvinism against the Korean nation while persistently suppressing and discriminating the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon), the dignified overseas citizens' organization of the DPRK, and other Koreans citizens in Japan. This is nothing but the aim to increase the dangerous consciousness and hostility toward the DPRK.
But Japan should clearly understand that the era of today is different from the one before the one century where it fooled and trampled down other countries and nations as it wished while touting "oneness of Japan and Korea" and "spirit of universal brotherhood".
Those who are not forgetting the past sacrifice and disaster will never overlook Japan's moves for reinvasion and pardon the encroachment on their dignity and sovereignty
The Korean people are not repressing the surging national resentment at Japan hell-bent on the reckless moves against the DPRK and Chongryon while pursuing the vicious hostile policy toward the DPRK, far from thoroughly apologizing for its past crimes, and hardening extraordinary readiness to settle account with Japan to the end.
Japan should clearly understand if it does not clearly settle account with the unethical crimes it forced the Korean people and other Asian people to the unbearable misfortune and sufferings but resorts to the reckless moves for turning itself into a military giant while insulting the victims, it will face only the judgment of justice and history.
Nocturnal View of Pyongyang
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These are nocturnal views of Pyongyang, the capital city of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. While its citizens are adoring the scenery of the picturesque Taedong River, public transport means run through brightly-illuminated streets. All these blend well, adding much peace, stability and unique splendour to the night of Pyongyang.