An unidentified North Korean official, second from right, answers journalists’ questions during a media briefing in Pyongyang, Friday. North Korea’s much hyped rocket crashed into the East Sea shortly after liftoff. Yonhap

By Kang Hyun-kyung

North Korea unsuccessfully fired a satellite on the back of a long-range rocket Friday to celebrate the centenary of late leader Kim Il-sung’s birth.

Several North Korean defectors said the regime is like a cult worshipping the late leader, the founder of the communist state.

The cost of the rocket launch projected by military authorities could have fed some 20 million North Koreans for a year.

Human rights activists here denounced the North for its decision to press on with the project at the expense of food for its citizens.

During a press conference in downtown Seoul, activists from the Network for North Korean Democracy and Human Rights urged the regime to stop the launch and feed its hungry people.

This followed the reclusive state’s pushing of the liftoff as planned, despite international condemnation and warnings of fresh sanctions and cutting humanitarian assistance.

The North’s tradeoff for food and the highly uncertain rocket launch raises a question. What makes the North Korean regime believe the liftoff is so important that it could come at the expense of food for hungry citizens?

Putting it simply, North Korean defectors here said the late Kim, founder of the communist state, is the equivalent of Jesus Christ for Christians in the “Hermit Kingdom.”

Just as Christians worship their Lord, so do North Koreans the father of the communist state.

“North Koreans are brainwashed to believe the birthday of Kim Il-sung is the beginning of history. Some even label them as Kim Il-sung people, and this shows how he can compare with Jesus Christ among Christians,” said Hong Sun-kyung, a former North Korean diplomat based in Thailand who defected in the early 2000s.

“The regime there had long planned to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the late Kim which falls on April 15 by announcing that the nation will become a strong and prosperous country by then. Since it is unrealistic for the impoverished nation to boost its economic profile suddenly, they chose the military option in which they have a comparative advantage.”

Hong, also chairman of the non-profit Committee for the Democratization for North Korea in Seoul, said the regime demanded residents need to be willing to weather hunger or other hardships if that is what it takes for the country to launch the rocket.

Some observers say North Korea has pursued missile and nuclear programs at the expense of the residents’ hunger and malnutrition as they linked military capability to national prestige.

Most countries that possess nuclear weapons are advanced countries, such as the United States and France, and therefore the North Korean regime there seem to perceive that their technology is equivalent to such nations, they said.

Cha Seok-ju, another defector, said grassroots North Koreans have no idea of the price tag of the rocket launch as the regime has never made it public and therefore there exists virtually no discontent about the government’s decision.

“North Koreans were educated to believe that if the communist country achieves the status of a prosperous and strong state, they will have no problems and live without worries,” said Cha, who defected the North in 2005.

Unlike the regime, he said, citizens there think that the late Kim’s birthday is no different from other holidays in the North and that they enjoy it because they are treated with food and have a day off.