All North Korean children are automatically members of the Korean Children’s Union, whose uniform includes the red neckerchiefs of the Young Pioneers of other communist state
To celebrate Korean Children’s Union Day on Tuesday, the pupils of Pyongyang Number Four Primary School threw mock grenades at targets, crawled under a frame and threw themselves over a fence – all with an imitation Kalashnikov automatic rifle over their shoulders. After completing the obstacle course, Myong Hyon-jong, whose favourite subject is mathematics, said she wanted to join the army when she grows up, to “safeguard the respected Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un with military power”. “We have to prepare ourselves to defend our country, ” she added. Hyon-jong is 10 years old. Her teacher Ri Su-ryon explained the race was intended “to give the children the spirit to defend our country when they are grown up, and to prepare them physically and mentally to beat down any enemies while upholding the Songun (military-first) revolutionary leadership of the respected marshal” – a reference to leader Kim Jong-un. Nuclear-armed North Korea is technically still in a state of conflict after the 1950-53 Korean war ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty. It considers itself at risk of invasion by the US – its justification for the atomic and missile programmes that have seen it subjected to multiple rounds of United Nations Security Council sanctions. The latest expansion came only last week.
