North Korea/ Pyongyang
Magnus Macedo
photos by Magnus Macedo
PART I: “Access” of Evil
From the air we could see the dry lands of North Korea with only a few irrigation fed rice fields. The highways looked empty from up there too.
Landing at Pyongyang’s International Airport was like landing fifty years ago in time. Old and semi-rusted airplanes parked next to the runway, old buses and even older cars next to the small and basic Airport building, felt ancient to me.
I was certainly the only Brazilian on that plane, and colleagues from ABC News were certainly the only Americans. The other passengers were mostly Chinese, North Koreans or Russians. It is not very often western journalists are here.
The officials were courteous but firm; and no smiles were ever exchange between them and us. I nervously tried a couple of times to have friendly eye contact with them. It never happened. Pyongyang was almost totally destroyed by the American/Allied troops in 1950’s war. Nearly 3 million Koreans were killed in those battles and most of their cities were reduced to rubble. The North Koreans accuse the US for starting this war and dividing their country in two. The resentment against the “Yankees,” as they call them, is clear.
We had three government “Minders” waiting for us. The first thing they asked us, after introducing themselves, was if we had any computers or cell phones. We knew beforehand that this kind of equipment was not allowed in North Korea, so, without hesitation, we surrendered them.
As we drove out of Pyongyang airport I saw rice fields all along the road leading to Pyongyang. Pyongyang has a population of about 2.5 million people but you didn’t have that impression when driving through town. It rather looked more like a bank holiday weekend. Even though it was mid-afternoon Tuesday there weren’t many cars or people in the streets. Mural paintings of their “great leader” Kim IL Sung and Revolution scenes were in almost every corner.
Our crew of five was divided into three cars with a government Minder in each of one of them. In our car, Mr. Li, N.K. Foreign office official, explained to me the meaning of each one of those gigantic monuments as we drove by them. He looked very proud, and sounded rather obsequious.
“Look” he said, “this is the Tower of the Juche Idea! This monument represents the principles of our society”! “And that, he said, is the Grand People’s Study House!” indicating a building that resembled a mega-pagoda, of un-human proportions, and surrounded by beautiful well-kept gardens. Ah! and that is the “Monument to Victory in the Fatherland Liberation War”, he said, another super mega monument.
When we drove by Kim IL Sung’s Square where the main Government buildings are. Mr. Li then couldn’t hide his excitement in showing us the Square. ‘Look, that’s Karl Marx! And that’s Lenin! And on the other side you can see our great leader, Kim Il Sung!
This huge square was basically empty, except in one corner where a couple of hundred school children rehearsed parade drills. The enormity of this Square is such that even with hundreds of kids it still looked empty.
God! The adoration to their supreme leader and founder of their country, Kim Il Sung and his son Kim Jong Il is almost like a religion. References to their leader are adorned with superlatives and praise by most Koreans. National TV channels show Military marches and National songs between programs. Civil awareness and duty reminders are constant broadcasted on TV. “Songs of freedom” always follow those announcements. Music is constantly played in the streets of Pyongyang as well; songs to inspire, songs of victory, revolution songs, and verses calling for unification with the South. Accordingly to Mr. Li, the practice dates back to the end of the war over 50 years ago.
“We have this to make the workers happier while they’re working” he smiled with pride. I saw “happy” workers laying new pavements almost everywhere in Pyongyang.
I often saw bands playing live music. Passers-by stopped to sing along for a bit and then carry on with their lives. I was prevented from Mr. Li from taking pictures of the scene.
Upon our arrival to the Koryo hotel, we were sent to our rooms and ordered to come downstairs in 1 hour to have dinner with Mr. Kim Gye Gwang, North Korea Vice Foreign Minister.
Mr. Gwang, a short, friendly look man in his mid-sixties appeared in the hotel foyer smiling and welcomed us to dinner. He made many toasts to our visit to his country with all sorts of rice spirits. At one point, I had a glass of beer, a glass of whisky, a glass of red wine and a glass of a rice spirit in front of me during dinner. All these being served by traditionally dressed waitresses topping off our glasses. The food was abundant and I tried tasty dishes that I couldn’t really identify as prawns, chicken, or maybe something that “tastes like chicken.”
After many toasts of welcome, Mr. Gwang wasn’t shy to tell us what he already had told the world: “Yes, we do have many nuclear weapons…we have to be prepared in case the Americans attack us”, he said. “We need to be able to defend ourselves…” “And we are on the process of making many more nuclear bombs…”
Do you have missiles? Yes we do, and they’re capable of carrying nuclear warheads too. How far? I’m not going to tell you this, obviously not, he said smiling.
“We‘re still very hopeful that the Bush administration will accept our proposal for bilateral talks. We hope commonsense will prevail,” he said. Mr. Wang also emphasized over dinner that the Koreans felt the UN left them down. “The world has let us down,” he said. He said the Americans should stop calling his country the “Axis of Evil” and “An Outpost of Tyranny”. We are utterly offended by those words, he said. Koreans are very proud of their country and would fight to the end to defend their Father Land, he said. “We dream the day of a unified Korea”, he said.
When asked about millions of his citizens of the verge of a famine, Mr. Gwang said: “Korea has problems like any other country”, not confirming not denying it.
Accordingly to WFP more than 3 million Koreans could starve if more aid is not given. At the moment N.K. gets aid from China, Russia, South Korea and even Japan and the US. But the WFP will pull out of N.K. soon for lack of funds to maintain its project there.” We will be forced to drop 3.5 million starving Koreans”, a WFP official told us in Pyongyang.
My American colleagues told Mr. Gwang that America is also a divided country, and that at least 50% of its population didn’t vote for this Government. Mr. Wang smiled and had another toast, this time with whisky. “Please be very welcomed to Korea”, he said in English.
NEXT: PART II: CENSORSHIP
EMAIL MAGNUS
photos by Magnus Macedo
PART I: “Access” of Evil
From the air we could see the dry lands of North Korea with only a few irrigation fed rice fields. The highways looked empty from up there too.
Landing at Pyongyang’s International Airport was like landing fifty years ago in time. Old and semi-rusted airplanes parked next to the runway, old buses and even older cars next to the small and basic Airport building, felt ancient to me.
I was certainly the only Brazilian on that plane, and colleagues from ABC News were certainly the only Americans. The other passengers were mostly Chinese, North Koreans or Russians. It is not very often western journalists are here.
The officials were courteous but firm; and no smiles were ever exchange between them and us. I nervously tried a couple of times to have friendly eye contact with them. It never happened. Pyongyang was almost totally destroyed by the American/Allied troops in 1950’s war. Nearly 3 million Koreans were killed in those battles and most of their cities were reduced to rubble. The North Koreans accuse the US for starting this war and dividing their country in two. The resentment against the “Yankees,” as they call them, is clear.
We had three government “Minders” waiting for us. The first thing they asked us, after introducing themselves, was if we had any computers or cell phones. We knew beforehand that this kind of equipment was not allowed in North Korea, so, without hesitation, we surrendered them.
As we drove out of Pyongyang airport I saw rice fields all along the road leading to Pyongyang. Pyongyang has a population of about 2.5 million people but you didn’t have that impression when driving through town. It rather looked more like a bank holiday weekend. Even though it was mid-afternoon Tuesday there weren’t many cars or people in the streets. Mural paintings of their “great leader” Kim IL Sung and Revolution scenes were in almost every corner.
Our crew of five was divided into three cars with a government Minder in each of one of them. In our car, Mr. Li, N.K. Foreign office official, explained to me the meaning of each one of those gigantic monuments as we drove by them. He looked very proud, and sounded rather obsequious.
“Look” he said, “this is the Tower of the Juche Idea! This monument represents the principles of our society”! “And that, he said, is the Grand People’s Study House!” indicating a building that resembled a mega-pagoda, of un-human proportions, and surrounded by beautiful well-kept gardens. Ah! and that is the “Monument to Victory in the Fatherland Liberation War”, he said, another super mega monument.
When we drove by Kim IL Sung’s Square where the main Government buildings are. Mr. Li then couldn’t hide his excitement in showing us the Square. ‘Look, that’s Karl Marx! And that’s Lenin! And on the other side you can see our great leader, Kim Il Sung!
This huge square was basically empty, except in one corner where a couple of hundred school children rehearsed parade drills. The enormity of this Square is such that even with hundreds of kids it still looked empty.
God! The adoration to their supreme leader and founder of their country, Kim Il Sung and his son Kim Jong Il is almost like a religion. References to their leader are adorned with superlatives and praise by most Koreans. National TV channels show Military marches and National songs between programs. Civil awareness and duty reminders are constant broadcasted on TV. “Songs of freedom” always follow those announcements. Music is constantly played in the streets of Pyongyang as well; songs to inspire, songs of victory, revolution songs, and verses calling for unification with the South. Accordingly to Mr. Li, the practice dates back to the end of the war over 50 years ago.
“We have this to make the workers happier while they’re working” he smiled with pride. I saw “happy” workers laying new pavements almost everywhere in Pyongyang.
I often saw bands playing live music. Passers-by stopped to sing along for a bit and then carry on with their lives. I was prevented from Mr. Li from taking pictures of the scene.
Upon our arrival to the Koryo hotel, we were sent to our rooms and ordered to come downstairs in 1 hour to have dinner with Mr. Kim Gye Gwang, North Korea Vice Foreign Minister.
Mr. Gwang, a short, friendly look man in his mid-sixties appeared in the hotel foyer smiling and welcomed us to dinner. He made many toasts to our visit to his country with all sorts of rice spirits. At one point, I had a glass of beer, a glass of whisky, a glass of red wine and a glass of a rice spirit in front of me during dinner. All these being served by traditionally dressed waitresses topping off our glasses. The food was abundant and I tried tasty dishes that I couldn’t really identify as prawns, chicken, or maybe something that “tastes like chicken.”
After many toasts of welcome, Mr. Gwang wasn’t shy to tell us what he already had told the world: “Yes, we do have many nuclear weapons…we have to be prepared in case the Americans attack us”, he said. “We need to be able to defend ourselves…” “And we are on the process of making many more nuclear bombs…”
Do you have missiles? Yes we do, and they’re capable of carrying nuclear warheads too. How far? I’m not going to tell you this, obviously not, he said smiling.
“We‘re still very hopeful that the Bush administration will accept our proposal for bilateral talks. We hope commonsense will prevail,” he said. Mr. Wang also emphasized over dinner that the Koreans felt the UN left them down. “The world has let us down,” he said. He said the Americans should stop calling his country the “Axis of Evil” and “An Outpost of Tyranny”. We are utterly offended by those words, he said. Koreans are very proud of their country and would fight to the end to defend their Father Land, he said. “We dream the day of a unified Korea”, he said.
When asked about millions of his citizens of the verge of a famine, Mr. Gwang said: “Korea has problems like any other country”, not confirming not denying it.
Accordingly to WFP more than 3 million Koreans could starve if more aid is not given. At the moment N.K. gets aid from China, Russia, South Korea and even Japan and the US. But the WFP will pull out of N.K. soon for lack of funds to maintain its project there.” We will be forced to drop 3.5 million starving Koreans”, a WFP official told us in Pyongyang.
My American colleagues told Mr. Gwang that America is also a divided country, and that at least 50% of its population didn’t vote for this Government. Mr. Wang smiled and had another toast, this time with whisky. “Please be very welcomed to Korea”, he said in English.
NEXT: PART II: CENSORSHIP
EMAIL MAGNUS
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