Workers Party of Korea Conference highlights on KCNA

Kumsusan Memorial Palace, DPRK

[The following article appeared in CanKor Report #329, and was published in UnCommon Sense, 14 October 2010]

All the news that’s fit to print in the DPRK about the Conference of the Workers Party has been gathered on a separate page in the official (North) Korean Central News Agency website here.

Numerous articles concern the surprising re-election of Kim Jong Il, first as a delegate, then as member of the WPK Central Committee and its Secretariat, member of the political bureau and the presidium of the political bureau, and finally as WPK General Secretary.

Following his re-election is a message of congratulations from Hu Jintao, on behalf of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, and numerous congratulatory events, beginning with a meeting of servicepersons of the three services of the Korean People’s Army:

Conversation #12

In which Weingartner challenges Pak’s claim that his faith in the Juche idea qualifies him as an atheist. [This episode has been greatly enhanced by a discussion among Korea experts in the Koreanstudies mailing list.]

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Pak Kim Li: I apologize that I had to cancel our last appointment. My life is not my own, you know.

Erich Heinz Weingartner: So I understand.

PKL: As much as I enjoy talking to you, you aren’t exactly my number one priority.

EHW: Which is a pity. But neither are you my first priority.

PKL: I’m not? That surprises me. Writing about the DPRK has become quite the cottage industry in the West as far as I can tell.

EHW: Yes, except that it pays very poorly.

PKL: You should consider the ideological satisfaction that you get in the process.