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North Korea’s Feb. 7 long-range rocket launch from the Dongchangri launch site. (Yonhap News)　

North Korea has announced a group of slogans that it will be using for the 7th Congress of the Korean Workers’ Party, which is scheduled for early May. By choosing slogans that emphasize “the successful hydrogen bomb test” and “satellite,” the North made clear its intention to highlight its fourth nuclear test and its rocket launch as its main achievements during the Party Congress, experts think.

North Korea’s KWP Central Committee and the KWP Central Military Commission announced around 350 “joint slogans” that will be used on the occasion of the Party Congress, official KWP newspaper the Rodong Sinmun reported on Feb. 18.

Many of the slogans emphasize nuclear weapons and the rocket launch, indicating that the party has chosen these as the accomplishments to emphasize in the first congress that it will hold in 36 years (“Let‘s all join together in a vigorous march this year using the energy that brought about the successful hydrogen bomb test” and “May ‘Juche Korea’ launch more satellites into the vast blue sky”).

About 100 of the slogans are focused on the areas of economy and quality of life (“Bring about a decisive increase in the nation’s production of electricity”).

There were only 13 slogans about North Korea’s relations with South Korea and with the outside world. Only a few of them were related to reconciliation or cooperation with South Korea (“The three charters for the unification of the nation and the inter-Korean statements provide an outline for unification and are the lifeline of the unification of the nation”), while there were quite a few confrontational slogans (“Let’s crush the mad schemes of launching a nuclear war against North Korea by the American imperialists and the warmongering puppets in South Korea through the united strength of the entire nation”).

By Kim Jin-cheol, staff reporter

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