An oath taking meeting in front of Kim Jong Il’s official birthplace held in Samjiyo’n on February 12, 2018 (Photo: KCNA).
Members of the DPRK central leadership traveled up to Samjiyo’n and to Mt. Paektu on February 12 (Monday). Among those who made the trip were Workers’ Party of Korea [WPK] Vice Chairman for Propaganda and Agitation Pak Kwang Ho [Pak Kwang-ho], WPK Vice Chairman for Light Industry An Jong Su [An Cho’ng-su], State Planning Commission Chairman and DPRK Vice Premier Ro Tu Chol [Ro Tu-ch’o’l], Second Economy Commission Chairman No Kwang Chol [No Kwang-ch’o’l], Yanggang WPK Provincial Committee Chairman Ri Sang Won [Ri Sang-wo’n], cadres of the WPK Central Committee, Korean People’s Army [KPA] officials, functionaries and members of workers’ and social organizations, commanding officers and personnel of the 216 Shock Division, People’s Committee officials of Yanggang Province and Samjiyo’n County and people who have received state awards and titles.
During the day, senior officials delivered flowers to the statues and monuments overlooking Lake Samji. At the night there was a loyalty oath meeting.
Speakers made a loyalty pledge in front of the wooden house near Mt. Paektu where, according official DPRK folklore, late leader Kim Jong Il [Kim Cho’ng-il] was born in 1942. The speakers noted that KJI “performed undying feats before the party, the revolution, the country and its people all his life, true to the noble intention of President Kim Il Sung [Kim Il-so’ng].” Stress was placed in the speeches on the “need to further spruce up Samjiyo’n Country, where the native home of Kim Jong Il situated, as a large open-air museum for educating in the revolutionary traditions and as paradise for the people without an equal in the world.” The speakers said they “would consider the historic victory won in building the nuclear force of the Republic as a springboard for new progress and wage a dynamic struggle to accomplish the patriotic cause of Kim Jong Il, the cause of building a powerful socialist nation through an all-people, all-out offensive.”
Meeting speakers and participants vowed “to become a thousand-fold fortress and shields to devotedly defend the Central Committee headed by Kim Jong Un (Kim Cho’ng-u’n).”