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Pyongyang – Surrounded by foggy hills, soldiers, sailors and North Korean civilians flock to a hero cemetery to pay tribute to their brothers in arms on Friday for the anniversary of the end of the war. Korea.
Hostilities ended 65 years ago with an armistice struck by United Nations forces led by the United States with North Koreans and their Chinese allies. There has been no peace treaty so the peninsula is still technically at war.
From 1950 to 1953, the two sides fought to the standstill, millions of people were killed and Korea, still cut in half by a demilitarized zone was no more than smoking ruins. But the North says it was a victory and the war is high on the Kim dynasty's arguments to legitimize its power.
Platoon after platoon, the different units gathered in this cemetery in the suburbs of Pyongyang dominated by the giant statue of a rifle barrel and a bayonet, decorated with the medal of the Hero of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the official name of the North.
They laid wreaths in front of a granite coffin decorated with a metal flag, a machine gun and a kepi.
A voice sings: " Incline us before the martyrs who took part in the Great Patriotic War of the Motherland ", the name given by Pyongyang to the conflict, before the military removes them kepi and do not lower their heads.
The first occupant of the cemetery to be killed, Jang Thae Hwa, 22, blocked the entrance of a pillbox with his chest six days after the invasion of the South by the North in 1950 to allow his unit to advance.
– Chronological order –
The last soldier to succumb was Ri Hyon Jun, 20, gunner made hero of the DPRK for shooting down four enemy aircraft, dead five days before the end of the conflict.
Once the ceremony was over, the soldiers wandered through the tomb alleys, arranged in chronological order.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, an American plane was taking possession of 55 remains of American soldiers killed during the war to take them to the South, the first step of their return home.
The relationship between North Korea with nuclear weapons and the United States has had an amazing turnaround lately.
After exchanging personal insults and bellicose threats in 2017, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump shook hands on June 12 in Singapore.
The return of the remains is part of the agreement reached on this occasion.
On the other hand, the question of whether the North is willing to give up the atomic arsenal that has earned it multiple UN sanctions trains is far from settled.
– " Brilliant Victory " –
In Singapore, Mr. Kim pledged to work for the denuclearization of the peninsula, a vague formula subject to divergent interpretations. Pyongyang has not proceeded to any confirmed measure and denounced the unilateral "19459006" requirements of the United States and their " gangster methods ".
But the North wants to develop its economy and the authorities want the current climate of bonhomie to continue.
Unlike the ordinary, AFP was not allowed to speak to people at the cemetery or attend a wreath laying on Mansu Hill, where giant statues of North Korea's founding father Kim Il Sung and his son and successor, Kim Jong Il, dominate Pyongyang.
Diplomats stationed in the capital say that getting an appointment with a manager is even more difficult than usual.
Propaganda posters focus more on the heroism of North Korean fighters than on the enemy's condemnations.
At a national conference of war veterans, Choe Ryong Hae, a politburo presidium member, highlighted on Thursday " the overwhelming victory of the military idea influenced by Juche (the ideology of the regime), strategy, tactics and the remarkable art of Kim Il Sung's command ".
Last year, the official media spoke of " US imperialist aggressors ," adding that the North would easily triumph over the enemy. And on July 28, 2017, Pyongyang made its second launch of Hwasong-14, its intercontinental ballistic missile.
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