By Kim Young-jin
North Korea has posthumously awarded late ruler Kim Jong-il its highest title, generalissimo, state media said Wednesday ahead of celebrations for the 70th anniversary of his birth.
Pyongyang issued a decree Tuesday awarding him "the title of generalissimo,” a dispatch from the Korean Central News Agency said. The move gives Kim the same rank as his father, country founder Kim Il-sung.
The regime has been busy glorifying the late despot in what analysts say is an attempt to emphasize the “royal family bloodline” as his son, Kim Jong-un, has been installed as the leader of the isolated state. A day earlier, a rare statue of the late Kim riding a horse was unveiled in Pyongyang.
The statue is the first bronze casting of Kim, after he reportedly resisted such an honor during his lifetime. A massive bronze statue of Kim Il-sung already exists in Pyongyang.
It came after the North revealed a massive carving of the late Kim’s name on a rockface in the southwestern province of South Pyongan ahead of the birthday celebrations, which analysts say will be a vehicle for the regime to project a sense of stability.
It will be the first time for the North to celebrate the date of Kim’s birth since the announcement of his death in December, at which time Kim Jong-un took power.
Other preparations reportedly include a huge fireworks display at what the North claims is Kim’s birthplace at the foot of Mt. Baekdu, near the border with China.
State media claim thousands have been travelling to the site to pay homage, despite freezing weather, adding that employees from Pyongyang's biggest department store have set up a temporary shop nearby to accommodate them.
In the dispatch, the North hailed the late autocrat for elevating the country into a “nuclear state” further suggesting efforts to rid Pyongyang of its atomic weapons will be difficult.
Regional players are consulting over how to resume six-party talks on denuclearizing Pyongyang.
Kim’s official biography indicates he was born in 1942 on Mt. Baekdu in the North. Experts, however, contend he was born a year earlier in a village in the Soviet Union, where his father led a brigade of Chinese and Korean exiles during the Japanese occupation of the peninsula.
Kim, called “Dear Leader,” was general secretary of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party and Chairman of the National Defense Commission, posts which his son may take up as he cements his leadership.