North Korea claims US soldiers cut child’s arms off in latest hate campaign
North Korean children must “never forget” brutal atrocities allegedly committed by the U.S. during the Korean War and abandon “fantasies” about Americans who still threaten war, state media said in a report Wednesday.
Korean Central Television (KCTV) aired scenes in a regular evening news program of a propaganda museum employee named Ri Ok Hui telling young children that unnamed U.S. soldiers killed her father before cutting off her arms when she was a 7-year-old girl.
The news segment comes as part of a new anti-U.S. hate campaign initiated by authorities in major state media outlets in June, and was aired a day before U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris landed in Seoul for talks about the DPRK with the South Korean president.
Pyongyang took down anti-U.S. propaganda posters and removed similar explicit references to Washington from major outlets to help facilitate bilateral talks in 2018, but NK News has uncovered evidence that posters stayed up in some places and that visits to “class education” museums continued in that time.
“Despite the passing of all these years, the wounds of the pain and misfortune inflicted by the American imperialists still burn in the hearts of our people,” a KCTV anchor said to start Wednesday’s news segment.
State media has reported Ri’s story in detail before and she has worked at the Central Class Education House for decades telling the same story to visitors. “Class education houses” are museums that feature exhibits chronicling alleged U.S., South Korean and Japanese war crimes as well as ideological threats such as religion and the dangers of foreign culture.
KCTV used dramatic music and camera angles while showing Ri’s talk to visiting children. She cried while telling them “the American imperialist enemy bastards and class enemy bastards” — the latter referring to South Korean soldiers — shot her wrists before sawing off her arms with glee.
A young boy interviewed by KCTV said Ri’s talk helped him understand that “harboring fantasies about the enemy is nothing but a self-destructive act,” implying children his age have positive impressions of the U.S. A young girl said she learned to “never forget” America’s actions during the war.
This echoes a report in top DPRK newspaper Minju Joson last week that said all people must “kill their fantasies” about the U.S. and possess “burning hatred for and hostility towards” America and other “enemies.”
DPRK leader Kim Jong Un and the ruling party have also heavily promoted efforts in recent years to eliminate existing interest among youth in foreign culture and media, which state media characterizes as a threat to Kim’s rule.
The students’ teacher told state TV viewers that the “blood and tears will flow once again on this land” from a new invasion if today’s generation doesn’t learn from stories of U.S. and South Korean war crimes, and that she’ll work harder to instill anti-U.S. education in the students.
Andrei Lankov, a director at NK News and professor at Kookmin University, wrote in July that massacres and atrocities were committed during the 1950-53 Korean War but that historians believe most were by Koreans of either side, not Americans. He added it has become impossible to verify most individual accusations due to lost or mishandled evidence.
To start the latest anti-U.S. campaign in June, North Korean authorities set up posters of nuclear missiles destroying the American mainland and gathered thousands of workers for a rally in Pyongyang to “vow revenge on the U.S. imperialists.”
However, the posters were old designs, and evidence has yet to emerge that authorities are displaying such posters on public streets like they were in 2017 and before.
State media has typically increased anti-American propaganda during times of conflict or when rallying the public around new weapons developments such as nuclear tests or new long-range missile launches.
Seung-Yeon Chung contributed to this report. Edited by Arius Derr
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