http://english.yna.co.kr/Engnews/20050512/610000000020050512112407E3.html
Presidential advisor under fire for praising Kim Il-sung
LOS ANGELES, May 11 (Yonhap) -- A Korean-American leading figure who heads the local branch of a South Korean presidential panel has sparked a controversy by referring to North Korean founder Kim Il-sung as "great leader" in the same manner as North Koreans.Kay Nam Kim, chairman of the Los Angeles branch of the Advisory Council on Democratic Peaceful Unification, came under fire for his complimentary remarks about the late North Korean leader, father of the current leader Kim Jong-il, during a visit to Pyongyang last week.He referred to the late Kim as "great leader" and wrote "the people (had) comfort under the guidance of leader Kim," in a guest book on May 5 when he visited Kumsusan Memorial Palace in Pyongyang, where the body of the North Korean founder is enshrined. Kim headed a delegation of about 50 members of the council's local branch that visited Pyongyang to deliver goats and fertilizer at the invitation of the North Korean government. The controversial phrases were recorded in videotape shot in North Korea which the delegation bought home.
LOS ANGELES, May 11 (Yonhap) -- A Korean-American leading figure who heads the local branch of a South Korean presidential panel has sparked a controversy by referring to North Korean founder Kim Il-sung as "great leader" in the same manner as North Koreans.Kay Nam Kim, chairman of the Los Angeles branch of the Advisory Council on Democratic Peaceful Unification, came under fire for his complimentary remarks about the late North Korean leader, father of the current leader Kim Jong-il, during a visit to Pyongyang last week.He referred to the late Kim as "great leader" and wrote "the people (had) comfort under the guidance of leader Kim," in a guest book on May 5 when he visited Kumsusan Memorial Palace in Pyongyang, where the body of the North Korean founder is enshrined. Kim headed a delegation of about 50 members of the council's local branch that visited Pyongyang to deliver goats and fertilizer at the invitation of the North Korean government. The controversial phrases were recorded in videotape shot in North Korea which the delegation bought home.
Conservative South Korean groups in Los Angeles held a press conference and a protest rally against the chairman.Kim, who is now staying in Seoul after the Pyongyang visit, said in a telephone interview that he apologizes for the impact that he did not anticipate."I was thinking what and how to write, flipping previous pages, and saw everybody wrote those phrases, and I wrote them without thinking or meaning anything, which became a tremendous mistake," Kim said.A similar controversy erupted in 2001 when a professor of Seoul's Dongguk University, Kang Jeong-koo, left a supportive message for the North Korean regime during his visit to Pyongyang.Kang's message on a guest book read "Let's uphold the 'Mankyongdae spirit' to accomplish the great task of national unification," referring to the birth place of the North Korean founder.He was arrested and indicted on charges of violating the National Security Law. The Advisory Council on Democratic Peaceful Unification, based in Seoul and with branches around the world, is a presidential panel that promotes exchanges with North Korea and ways to expedite reunification.
I looked into going to the DPRK and was actually considering it for a time. That is untill I read that you'd have to "bow before the statues of kim Ill Sung". I knew then that I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Bite my tongue, maybe, bow down... nope.
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