Thursday 27 June 2019

Speech to UK KFA AGM on the 25th Anniversary of the passing away of the great leader comrade KIM IL SUNG -Dr Dermot Hudson UK KFA Chairman

Comrades and friends .
In a few weeks , on the 8th of July it will be 25 years since the great leader comrade KIM IL SUNG passed away so suddenly -. Although it was 25 years ago , a quarter of century ago , it still seems like yesterday . I remember that fateful day in July 1994 when the great leader comrade KIM IL SUNG left us  . I first heard the news that the great leader comrade KIM IL SUNG had passed away on the 9th of July when I was visiting my mother's house at Winchester, Hampshire. It was announced suddenly and abruptly on the Radio . I did not believe the news reports , I thought they must be false. When I  heard the stark announcement my heart beat fast and I felt ill. I walked up my mother's garden to calm down .Later I wondered about the city thinking deeply , telling myself it was not true .After all only a few days before on Sunday the 3rd of July I had returned from People's Korea travelling via Beijing , China. We had actually left the DPRK on Saturday 2nd of July . Our visit to the DPRK had been very successful .During our visit , virtually each day we saw the great leader comrade KIM IL SUNG on the tv giving either giving on-the spot guidance or meeting foreign guests  such as Ludo Martens the then head of the Workers' Party of Belgium . Each time he met foreign guests on tv the theme "Long live Marshal KIM IL SUNG" ! was played which gave a certain grandeur , a real sense of presence  He looked healthy and vigorous .To me it was impossible  and unimaginable that comrade KIM IL SUNG leave us  so soon.
   At 2am in the morning of the 8th of July 1994 comrade KIM IL SUNG had passed away suddenly whilst still at work even though it was 2am in the morning . I believe he had been working on documents about the economy and national reunification . When the news was announced by KCNA and DPRK TV people in the DPRK rushed  to the statues of the great leader comrade KIM IL SUNG .They were in tears and some threw themselves to the ground , how could they be parted from President KIM IL SUNG ? A lot of people in the West totally fail to understand the reverence of the Korean people for the great leader comrade KIM IL SUNG .As one Korean explained to me  they wore the badge with the image of the  President  with pride and devotion  because  without  the President there would no be no Korea . President  KIM IL SUNG  had fought the Japanese imperialists for more than a decade to win the independence of Korea and start to build a new nation. Indeed President KIM IL SUNG  was the father of  modern Korea and the founder of socialist Korea. Moreover he wast like a father to a the Korean people as he established a socialist system which gave them  full employment , free education , free health care , housing and many other things that in other countries are regarded as an impossibility. President KIM IL SUNG also worked for the independent reunification of Korea , in fact he had been planning a summit with the south Korean chief executive before he passed away . President KIM IL SUNG fought for world peace and global independence .  For the people of the DPRK losing President KIM IL SUNG was like losing their parents .
  However rallying under the leadership of the great leader comrade KIM JONG IL , the successor to the great leader comrade KIM IL SUNG , the Korean people turned sorrow into strength and did not let grief defeat them but carried on the Juche revolutionary cause and worked hard to to build a better and more prosperous socialist country.
 The reason why it seems like only yesterday that comrade KIM IL SUNG passed way rather than a quarter of a century ago , is that his memory burns brightly . Comrade KIM IL SUNG is alive as the   Juche idea, the idea of independence and self-reliance and alive in the pulsating reality of People's Korea .
 We in UK KFA salute the memory of the great leader comrade KIM IL SUNG !

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