As world mobilizes to send aid, Pyongyang uses victims to promote regime's propaganda
Seoul (AsiaNews/Agencies) South Korean authorities have confirmed that their government will ship 20 million dollars in humanitarian aid by sea to North Korea. Yet while Seoul and the international community make huge efforts to help the train disaster victims, Pyongyang uses even this dramatic situation to advance its own political propaganda.
South Korea has accepted all the requests made by the North Korean government: It will send 50,000 tons of cement, 10,000 tons of food, 10 bulldozers, 10 industrial diggers, 500 tons of diesel fuel, 1500 school chairs and desks, 50 chalkboards, 10,000 tons of food and 50 television sets.
According to South Korean Unification Minister, Jeong Se-hyun, shipping the goods will cost about 20 million dollars.
On Apr. 28 a separate South Korean freighter had already set sail for the North with a cargo full of basic necessities (instant noodles, blankets, bottles of water, etc.) worth 1 million dollars.
In both cases, Pyongyang has asked that the shipments arrive by sea, thereby not permitting transport by land routes across the northern border. The border between the South and the North has been impassible for over 50 years. North Korea has also prevented southern medical doctors from traveling to Ryongchon to lend their emergency aid services to explosion victims.
Internal management of the crisis has given way to new suspicion. North Korea has estimated that there were 356 million dollars in damages resulting from the disaster. Yet many analyst say that this figure is much higher that what is actually needed, leaving one to suppose that Pyongyang is trying to obtain more help in order to deal with the country's longstanding food crisis.
Meanwhile the North Korean state press agency, KCNA, praised the "heroic death" of 4 persons who died while entering crumbling and burning buildings to save portraits of the nation's "beloved leader" Kim Jong-Il and the founder of North Korea, Kim Il-Sung.
"Many persons from the county went in (the buildings) to remove the portraits before looking for the own family members or saving their own property," the news dispatch read.
KCNA also cited the example of a 56-year old teacher, Han Jong Suk, "who breathed her last breath while holding portraits to her chest." (MR)
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