National Meeting Marks 60th Anniversary of Worker-Peasant Red Guards

Pyongyang, January 14 (KCNA) -- A national meeting was held at the People's Palace of Culture on Monday to mark the 60th founding anniversary of the Worker-Peasant Red Guards, revolutionary armed forces of the Workers' Party of Korea.

President Kim Il Sung mapped out a far-reaching plan of putting all people under arms and founded the Worker-Peasant Red Guards, the elite revolutionary militia forces, on January 14, Juche 48 (1959) from its predecessor the People's Self-defence Forces, for its further development,.

Attending the meeting were Choe Ryong Hae, member of the Presidium of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, vice-chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the DPRK and vice-chairman of the C.C., WPK, Choe Pu Il, minister of People's Security, Kim Nung O, chairman of the Pyongyang City Committee of the WPK, Ri Yong Rae, department director of the C.C., WPK, officials in civilian defence forces field, leading personnel and members of the Worker-Peasant Red Guards in Pyongyang including those of ministries and national institutions.

Present there were officials of the armed forces organs including Army General Ri Yong Gil, chief of the General Staff of the Korean People's Army.

Choe Ryong Hae made a commemorative report.

The reporter said that as Kim Il Sung founded the Worker-Peasant Red Guards, the all-people and nationwide defence system with the Korean People's Army (KPA) as the core was established and a steadfast guarantee was provided to firmly defend the sovereignty and dignity of the country and nation and vigorously accelerate the socialist construction.

He referred to the fact that the Worker-Peasant Red Guards which was firmly prepared as reliable revolutionary armed forces of the WPK, together with the KPA, has fulfilled its mission and duty in every rigorous decade while smashing the enemies' vicious moves to ignite a new war.

He recalled that the leading officials and members of the WPRG who firmly held rifle in one hand and hammer or sickle or writing brush in the other performed brilliant labor feats in the struggle for realizing President Kim Il Sung's and Chairman Kim Jong Il's patriotic desire for building a powerful country.

He called upon them to bear unshakable confidence in final victory and burning patriotism and fulfill their honorable mission and duty in the campaign for defending the country and building a socialist power under the leadership of the great Party. -0-