Seoul: Pyongyang deployed one of its most symbolic media assets to declare a key moment in North Korea’s missile development, a television announcer in its 70s.
Ri Chun-Hee has told loyal viewers about the deaths of country founder Kim Il-Sung and his son Kim Jong-Il, and several of the nuclear tests that have subjected him to multiple rounds of UN sanctions.
Today her apparitions are rare, but Korean state television Central Television called her back to the studio for news on Tuesday. Facing a backdrop of Mt Paektu, the inactive volcano on the Chinese border that is the source of Korean nationality, she said: “North Korean scientists successfully conducted the launch test for a newly developed intercontinental ballistic missile” (ICBM ).
In a traditional pink and black suit, known as hanbok in the south and choson chogori in the north, she almost jumped up and down with enthusiasm. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the official name of the North was “a strong nuclear state that, in addition to its atomic weapons, has very powerful ICBM that can attack any place in the world in its possession,” he said.
“I would proudly protect peace and security on the Korean peninsula as well as in the region,” he said. Leader Kim Jong-Un personally oversaw the launch, he said, and the station showed footage of an exalted Kim clenching his fists and clapping his subordinates. He also showed his handwritten order to carry out the test, dated Monday.
“The Party Center approves an ICBM test fire,” he reads. “The test will be held at 9 am on July 4.” It seems to have been thrown exactly on schedule.
The still images showed a missile rising from the ground, throwing a flame and clouds against a background of green hills.
Other photos showed Kim, wearing a Mao striped suit, protecting his eyes with a raised hand and looking up at the sky, or sitting behind a desk looking through a pair of binoculars.
Hours after the North launched a ballistic missile that flew more than 900 kilometers on Tuesday, the North state press said it would make an “important announcement.”
“Important announcements” were made twice last year, one in January when the North claimed it had successfully tested a hydrogen bomb and the other in February when it said it had put a satellite in orbit.
Before the broadcast, the television station showed old images of a rocket launching and missiles rolling through Pyongyang in a military parade in April, playing songs praising Kim’s leadership before Ri appeared.
