N. Korea marks anniversary of founder's birth amid tensions

By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, April 15 (Yonhap) -- North Korea celebrated the 97th birthday of its late
founder, Kim Il-sung, on Wednesday as regional tensions mounted after its
withdrawal from nuclear disarmament talks.

Protesting the U.N. Security Council's condemnation of its recent rocket launch,
North Korea said Tuesday it was quitting the six-party talks aimed at ending its
nuclear weapons program.
Further North Korean actions appeared likely, as South Korea prepared to announce
its full participation in a U.S.-led anti-proliferation drive, the Proliferation
Security Initiative (PSI) -- an action which Pyongyang has said would be
tantamount to a "declaration of war."
Adding to tensions on the Korean Peninsula, a group of North Korean defectors in
the South planned to send leaflets criticizing leader Kim Jong-il into the North
on his father's birthday.
Kim Il-sung died of heart failure in 1994. On the eve of the anniversary of his
birth, North Koreans held various gatherings and visited a mausoleum where Kim's
embalmed body lies in state to celebrate the holiday, called the "Day of Sun,"
Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency said.
At one of the gatherings, Kim Yong-nam, president of the Presidium of the Supreme
People's Assembly and the North's ceremonial head, accused the conservative South
Korean government and the United States of attempting an invasion against the
North.
"If the U.S. and the anti-reunification aggressor forces of South Korea ignite a
war on this land in the end," Kim Yong-nam said, "all the servicepersons and
people will display the invincible spirit and powerful war deterrent for
self-defense and mete out a merciless punishment to the provocateurs and
accomplish the historic cause of national reunification."
North Korea has said the PSI, initiated by the U.S. in 2003 to interdict and
seize ships and planes suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction, is
aimed at stifling "those countries incurring their (the U.S. and its allies')
displeasure."
In a statement on March 30, the North said the two Koreas are now in a
"touch-and-go situation" and warned South Korea's participation in the PSI will
bring about "a nuclear war disaster."
Just south of the border, a group of North Korean defectors planned later
Wednesday to fly about 100,000 leaflets into the North using balloons. They were
including letters to officials in the Workers' Party and attaching North Korean
banknotes to entice people to pick them up.
The letters urged party officials to "oppose and topple Kim Jong-il" and reveal
the truth about the April 5 rocket launch, which the North claims has
successfully orbited a satellite as part of its peaceful space program. Outside
monitors say no such object entered space and viewed the launch as a cover for a
long-range missile test.
"It is the senior officials of the Workers' Party who move and manage the regime,
and we decided to talk to them, not just ordinary citizens," said Park Sang-hak,
a North Korean defector and leader of the Fighters for Free North Korea.
North Korean officials and state media have expressed strong discontent with the
leaflet campaign, which describes their leader as a "vicious dictator and
murderer" who indulges in western luxuries.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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