North Korea will stage its biggest-ever military parade - involving 20,000 troops, missiles, tanks and other weaponry - to mark a ruling party anniversary this weekend, a report said Friday. South Korea's Yonhap news agency, quoting sources, said Sunday's celebration would also involve some 100,000 civilians in a colourful rally. It said fireworks have been imported from China for an evening gala along the banks of the Taedong river, which bisects the showpiece capital Pyongyang.
The event will come less than two weeks after the youngest son of leader Kim Jong-Il was appointed a four-star general and given two powerful communist party posts. The moves confirmed his status as eventual successor to his ailing 68-year-old father, according to South Korean officials. Seoul's Defence Minister Kim Tae-Young said Monday the North appears to be using the anniversary to celebrate "the formation of a succession platform" for the son Jong-Un.
The minister said about 15,000 soldiers have been deployed near Pyongyang for the parade marking the 65th anniversary of the party's founding. The nuclear-armed but impoverished nation struggles to feed its people, with one third of young children stunted by malnutrition according to the UN children's fund.
Its official news agency said Friday the capital was in festive mood, with art, photo and book exhibitions held to commemorate the impending anniversary. Crowds are flocking to museums to learn about the party's "glorious history" or visiting a giant statue of founding president Kim Il-Sung to lay floral tributes, it said. Streets are decorated with flags and placards reading "Iron-willed Party" and "Invincible Party". South Korean activists said they would launch cross-border leaflets criticising the dynastic succession plan to coincide with the anniversary.
They said the leaflets would be floated by balloon across the tense frontier after a ceremony attended by US activist Suzanne Scholte and by North Korean defectors living in the South. The launch from the city of Paju is aimed at encouraging North Koreans to rise up against Kim Jong-Il, Park Sang-Hak, who heads a group of defectors, told AFP.
He said the balloons would also carry CDs denouncing Kim and his heir apparent. Previous leaflet launches by private groups have angered Pyongyang. At military talks last week, the North said its artillery was preparing to fire on South Korean sites used to launch them unless Seoul halts the practice.
Park said he was unfazed by the threat. "I'm not worried at all because I've been threatened so many times already - publicly and personally. I dare them to do it," he told AFP. The South's government says it has no legal power to ban private groups from floating leaflets across the frontier. The Seoul government has said it will launch its own propaganda war, involving leaflets, radios and loudspeaker broadcasts, if there are any more provocations from its neighbour. Seoul accuses the North of attacking a South Korean warship in March and killing 46 sailors, a charge Pyongyang vehemently denies.