HIGHEST RESPECT TO KIM IL SUNG

Visitors to the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea can often see the sight of the Korean people who present bouquets of flowers and make a deep bow to the statue of President Kim Il Sung(1912-1994) standing on Mansu Hill in the central part of Pyongyang, the capital of the DPRK.

A token of the highest respect to the President constitutes part of the Korean people’s life.

This can be observed in other aspects, as well. In Pyongyang there is the Kumsusan Memorial Palace where the President Kim Il Sung lies in state. The palace had originally been called the Kumsusan Assembly Hall, his official residence.

It is a convention that when the head of state in any country died or resigned his post, his official residence as well as his public position are handed over to his successor.

Leader Kim Jong Il, however, had a firm determination to keep his predecessor in his lifetime appearance at the Kumsusan Assembly Hall.

According to his intention, the Kumsusan Assembly Hall was renovated into the Kumsusan Memorial Palace, the supreme temple of Juche where the President is kept in his lifetime appearance.

The newly renovated Kumsusan Memorial Palace is a manifestation of the highest tribute which Kim Jong Il and the Korean people pay to President Kim Il Sung.

In the DPR Korea, the Juche era was instituted with 1912 as the first year when Kim Il Sung was born, the Day of the Sun was designated to immortalize April 15, the President’s birthday, the socialist constitution was amended and supplemented to codify that Kim Il Sung is the eternal President of the DPRK, and a series of undertakings have been carried forward to implement his ideology and cause to the last. All these undertakings are run through with the lofty tribute to him.

The Korean leader starts his work of every New Year by visiting the Kumsusan Memorial Palace and making a bow to him in humble reverence.

The journey of his continuous field guidance to the army and people is replete with the highest respect to his predecessor. He first looks round the monument to the President’s revolutionary activities wherever he goes.

It was on April 15, 1997 when Kim Jong Il visited a unit of the Korean People’s Army.

Saying that he failed to pay his respect to the President at the Kumsuan Memorial Palace because he was spending the Day of the Sun on the road of field guidance, he raised his hand in salute together with the accompanying officials in front of a monument to the President’s revolutionary activities erected on the spot.

Thanks to his unshakable will to inherit and glorify the priceless exploits performed by the President in his lifetime, Korea won victory in the grim struggle to defend socialism in the closing years of the last century, and has achieved miraculous successes in the building of a great, prosperous and powerful socialist nation during the first decade of the new century.

The building of thriving nation in Korea, which is now drawing attention of international community, is a vivid manifestation of loyalty to the President’s ideology and cause.

It was the President’s greatest wish to enable his people to lead a happy life with no envy in the world. The Korean leader, who has unfolded a grand plan of building a thriving nation to carry forward the President’s ideal with credit, is steering the all-out campaign for its implementation.

His continuous inspection tours to the units throughout the country have made it possible to achieve one miraculous success after another in breaking through the cutting edge and attaining the high goal of building a thriving nation.

Tow artificial satellites were successfully launched, CNC technology has been introduced into many factories, crop fields across the country were rezoned into large-sized, standardized fields, large-sized hydroelectric power stations, including the Huichon Power Station, are being built at a rapid speed.

Of late, a large-scale sturgeon-farming system has been established, and its farming in the sea succeeded, thus startling the world once again.

The leadership of Kim Jong Il over the building of a thriving is run through with the effort to perfectly realize the President’s lifetime desires and ideals.

For the success in establishing the Juche-oriented steel-making method, one of the President’s lifetime wish, Kim Jong Il visited the Songjin Steel Complex, Kim Chaek Iron and Steel Complex and other iron and steel manufacturers across the country on many an occasion, and ensured that a new type of steel-making system which does not rely on coke and scrap iron was established at long last.

Vinalon cotton cascading down in Korea is permeated with the lofty respect of the successor to the President.

The President devoted his heart and soul to vinalon production so as to solve the problem of the people’s clothing. After an interval of 16 years vinalon began to be mass-produced once again.

On seeing vinalon cotton, he felt it again and again with his hands and went to Pyongyang, to the Kumsusan Memorial Palace with the cotton in his car, saying that he had to present it to the President so that the latter could see it. The Korean people’s hearts are now running toward 2012.

It is their firm determination to open the gates of a great, prosperous and powerful nation by 2012, the 100^th anniversary of President Kim Il Sung’s birth.

Kim Il Sung will be eternally enjoying the boundless respect of the Korean people.