“The future of the DPRK is immensely bright as it holds Kim Jong Il, the illustrious commander of Mt. Paektu and statesman of general-type, at the top posts of the Party, the army and the state.”
So says the illustrious and glorious vanguard of the Revolution, the Korean Central News Agency of DPRK, in an article about the “re-election” of the Dear Leader to the head of the National Defense Commission, the country’s most powerful government post.
The DPRK has become a state that is so demented that Hollywood satirizes it and tourists visit it as if it were a perverted Asian Disney World. But for the inhabitants of North Korea, Kim Jong-Il’s desire to maintain power for the foreseeable future is simply an extension of their 60-year prison sentence. For too many, a death sentence even.
With the recent kidnapping of two American journalists, the unsuccessful launch of the Eunha-2 rocket, and its aggressive posturing with South Korea, North Korea is behaving much like a rabid dog would: sickly and dangerously.
For those interested in following the only modern State-cum-death camp, the website of the Network for North Korean Democracy and Human Rights is a must-read. In addition to invaluable perspectives from North Korean defectors and intelligence analysts, they publish translations of letters smuggled out of the DPRK.
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