hankyoreh

By Lee Soon-hyuk, staff writer

North Korea has long claimed that the one-hundredth anniversary of Kim Il-sung‘s birth would mark the first year of an era of great national strength and prosperity. To mark the anniversary, yesterday the North held the biggest military parade in its history, at which it publicly revealed a new type of long-distance ballistic missile.

The parade was held by the North Korea’s Korean People‘s Army, Navy, Air Force, Worker-Peasant Red Guard and Young Red Guards Cadets in Kim Il-sung Square in Pyongyang on Sunday morning. 880 pieces of weaponry and equipment of 34 kinds were displayed.

“What was striking was a new long-distance ballistic missile. South Korean and US intelligence authorities are cooperating to determine whether it was strategically deployed,” said a source with the South Korean military. The missile is around two meters in diameter and 18 meters long, but has never been launched, so its range has not been determined.

Long-distance ballistic missiles revealed so far by North Korea include the Taepodong 1, which was test-launched in 1998 and has a range of 1,700-2,200 km; Taepodong-2, which was test-launched in 2006 (2009) and has a range of 4,000-6,000 km; and the Musudan missile, which was publicly revealed at celebrations to mark the 65th anniversary of the founding of the Workers’ Party of Korea in 2010. Among these, the Musudan missile is the closest in size to the missile newly revealed on Sunday. The Taepodong-1, with a length of 25.8 m, is longer, while the intercontinental ballistic missile-class Taepodong-2 measured almost 40 m in length and had a launch weight was 70-80 t, making it much larger than the new missile.

The Musudan missile, by contrast, was relatively short, at 12-18.9 m in length, but was an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) with a longer range than the Taepodong-1. The comment from a military source that “Its range appears to be longer than that of the Musudan missile,” hints that the newly revealed missile bears comparison with the Mususan. Based on the facts known so far, it is highly likely that the new missile is an IRBM, but could also be an ICBM.

The date of the parade was moved forward ten days from its originally scheduled date of April 25, the North Korean People’s Army (KPA) Foundation Day. This appears to be a measure taken to mark Kim Il-sung’s centenary by holding the parade on that day for the first time.

The parade appeared intended to provoke nostalgia. A brigade dressed in the uniforms of anti-Japanese partisans and a mounted brigade wearing white coats reminiscent of the snow on the plains of Manchuria appeared. “The hats worn by the military top brass standing next to First Secretary Kim Jong-un, over white uniforms, were the same style as those worn by Premier Kim Il-sung when he entered Pyongyang immediately after liberation,” said a military source. “It seems they made a lot of effort to conjure up an image of the past.”

The parade bore various similarities to that held to mark the 60th KPA Foundation Day on April 25, 1992, immediately after National Defense Commission Chairman Kim Jong-il had been appointed supreme commander of the KPA and given the title of head of state. Then, too, 707 pieces of weaponry and equipment of 26 kinds were mobilized, making it at the time the biggest military parade in the North’s history.

In both parades, the leaders spoke publicly for the first time. In 1992, Kim Jong-il said just one sentence, “Glory to the heroic soldiers of the People’s Army.” That was his first and last public speech.

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