Kim Jong Il’s death on Saturday has sparked a 13-day mourning period in North Korea as thousands converged on Pyongyang to pay their respects to their “Dear Leader.” As AP reported :
Tens of thousands of mourners packed Pyongyang’s snowy main square Wednesday to pay respects to late leader Kim Jong Il as North Korea tightened security in cities and won loyalty pledges from top generals for Kim’s son and anointed heir.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il lies in state as his son and apparent successor Kim Jong Eun pays his respects. (Dec. 20)
Women held handkerchiefs to their faces as they wept and filed past a huge portrait of a smiling Kim Jong Il hanging on the Grand People’s Study House, in the spot where a photograph of Kim’s father, North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, usually hangs.
A huge crowd of mourners converged on Kim Il Sung Square with traditional white mourning flowers in hand. The crowd grew throughout the day, even as heavy snow fell, and some mourners took off their jackets to shield mourning wreaths set up in Kim’s honor, just below the spot where he stood last year waving to crowds at the massive military parade where he introduced his successor, Kim Jong Un.
Two medical workers rushed to carry away a woman who had fainted.
“We chose to come here to care for citizens who might faint because of sorrow and mental strain,” Jon Gyong Song, 29, who works as a doctor in a Pyongyang medical center, told The Associated Press. “The flow of mourners hasn’t stopped since Tuesday night.”
While public mourning for Kim Jong Il has swept across North Korea, its neighbors to the south eye developments with concern. As Chico Harlan explained :
South Korea’s government expressed condolences Tuesday to the North Korean people but said it won’t send an official delegation to the Dec. 28 funeral.
Some Koreans said they worry about tension escalating on the peninsula. But those who are older than 30 remember the unexpected death in 1994 of North Korea founder Kim Il Sung, a moment when many experts predicted the Stalinist nation’s swift demise. As it turned out, Kim’s son, Kim Jong Il, rose to power and held the country intact through repressive tactics and an all-consuming personality cult.
By the end of the decade, the two Koreas had entered the most peaceful 10-year period of coexistence in their modern history.
“So I would describe the general mood here as subdued,” said John Delury, an assistant professor at Seoul’s Yonsei University. “Seoul is not in a state of alert.”
For now, North Korea has shown no signs of turmoil. The Associated Press, with a reporter in Pyongyang, described “somber streets” with no discord.
The state-controlled media have spent two days paying homage to Kim Jong Eun, calling him a “great person born of heaven” — a description previously used for his father and grandfather. The Korean Central News Agency said that North Koreans would trust and follow Kim Jong Eun “under whatever circumstances.”
Michael J. Green, a former special assistant to President George W. Bush and senior director for Asia on the National Security Council, explained his thoughts about how the Obama administration should handle North Korea after Kim Jong Il:
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