Nepal joins in North Korea’s Kim birthday celebrations

About three weeks after snubbing the National Unity Day celebration marked on the occasion of the birth anniversary of Late King Prithvi Narayan Shah, the government has said that the birthday of North Korea’s “great leader” Kim Jong-iI, birth anniversary of his father, late President Kim II Sung, and the Korea Day which marks the founding of the "democratic people's republic of North Korea" will be “celebrated grandly” in Nepal by organising various programmes.

It was not immediately known what programmes would be organised in Nepal to honour one of the most reclusive dictator who is accused of innumerable crimes against humanity and causing worldwide outrage with his attempts to develop nuclear weapons, his equally notorious father and the day which marks the founding of the DPRK, a totalitarian state which according to US President Bush is one of the “axis of evil countries”. A National Preparation Committee has been formed under the chairmanship of Minister for Information and Communications, Krishna Bahadur Mahara, to officially celebrate the birthday of the leader Kim on February 16, Kim II Sung birth anniversary on April 15 and Korea Day on September 9, according to the state-owned the Rising Nepal.

According to the government’s official mouthpiece, the committee also includes Minister for Foreign Affairs Sahana Pradhan as honorary Chairperson and Minister for Land Reforms and Management Jagat Bahadur Bogati and Maoist lawmaker Suresh Ale Magar as the members.

The state-run paper quoted Minister for Information and Communication Krishna Prasad Mahara as saying at a programme organised by Nepal-North Korea Friendship Association that the celebration was meant to remind Nepalis of the revolution of Korean people against “[worldwide] imperialism”, in what appeared to be a thinly veiled criticism of America which CPN-Maoist party [to which minister Mahara belongs] often accuses of being the champion of.

Minister Mahara was reported as saying that it was “highly appropriate” for Nepal to celebrate the three functions as “a symbol of anti-imperialism” and expressed his confidence that it would convey the sense of respect to the contribution of Korean people.

The government’s decision to celebrate the three functions comes at a difficult juncture in country’s history when it is going through a transitional period to a democratic republican state. nepalnews.com ag Jan 29 08