NK leader gets giant propaganda carving

By Kim Young-jin

North Korea has made its first giant hillside carving hailing leader Kim Jong-un amid a recent propaganda push aiming to consolidate his power.

Spotted via Google Earth by website North Korea Economy Watch, the giant characters on a hill in the northern Ryanggang Province read “Long live the sun of Korea, General Kim Jong-un!”

Pyongyang has long carved praises extolling its ruling Kim family into mountains. In April it unveiled a huge rock carving near the city of Gaeseong in memory of the recently-passed Kim Jong-il.

The latest effort indicates that the North, which is currently modernizing its capital city, is still keen on resorting to old methods to build a personality cult around its leader.

Analysts say the intensified propaganda may be a final push to herald in Kim as the new leader given that the first anniversary of his father’s Dec. 19 death approaches.

It came amid a flurry of other moves. The Choson Sinbo, a pro-North Korean newspaper in Japan, reported earlier this month that the ruling Workers' Party published about Kim, the first in what is expected to be a series of volumes that will extol him, as the regime did his predecessors.

The book says Kim was a child prodigy and well-versed in international politics and military affairs.

New badges featuring Kim have reportedly been distributed to senior government officials, adding to the selection of badges featuring the ruling Kim’s that officials are required to wear.

Rodong Sinmun, the ruling party’s mouthpiece, has begun featuring a new slogan in its top right-hand corner urging citizens to fervently support Kim, after the message had typically been about striving to reach socialist goals.

Meanwhile, in a rare move, the North’s state media published photographs of Kim visiting the State Security Department in Pyongyang and posing with officials there.

The move sparked questions of whether it was a mistake to run the photos of the secretive department or if there was a motive.