Tens of thousands of weeping North Koreans bade farewell yesterday to long-time leader Kim Jong-Il as his young son and successor walked beside his father’s coffin through a snowbound Pyongyang.
Kim Jong-Un was at the forefront of the three-hour procession, in what analysts said was an attempt to bolster the image of the untested new leader of the impoverished but nuclear-armed nation.
The cortege started and ended its 40-kilometre journey at the Kumsusan Memorial Palace, where the late strongman’s body had lain in state in a glass coffin.
Preceded by a car bearing a huge portrait of a smiling Mr Kim and other vehicles, a limousine carried his coffin – draped with a red ruling party flag and surrounded by white flowers – on its roof.
Mr Jong-Un, dressed in black and gloveless despite the cold, held the side of his father’s hearse, accompanied by his influential uncle Jang Song-Thaek and other officials.
“We have paraded here to bid farewell to our respected supreme commander,” the head of a military honour guard said in a tearful voice, before a 21-gun salute was fired at the end of the ceremony.
Goose-stepping soldiers carrying dozens of party and military flags marched in salute to Mr Jong-Un and senior officials.
Kim Jong-Il’s absolute 17-year rule was marked by a 1990s famine that killed hundreds of thousands, a crumbling state-directed economy and the pursuit of missiles and nuclear weapons which brought international sanctions.
UN agencies have said six million people – a quarter of the population – still urgently need food aid.
But hundreds of thousands of shivering soldiers and civilians, many weeping bitterly or beating the frozen ground, were seen on state television lining the route or parading outside the palace.
“The people bid farewell to father General in great sorrow,” read the main headline in ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun.
“The most heartbreaking time has come, when we cannot but bid farewell to the great father everyone in this land had followed with their hearts and souls.”
Millions of servicemen and civilians were “firmly determined to become the guns and bombs to protect our dear comrade Kim Jong-Un and the warriors to realise his ideals and intentions”.
Mr Kim gave North Korea dignity as a country “that manufactured and launched artificial satellites and accessed nukes”, the paper’s editorial said.
Since the elder Mr Kim died of a heart attack on December 17 aged 69, the North’s propaganda machine has been heaping tributes on both him and Mr Jong-Un, aged in his late 20s.
Official media has declared Mr Jong-Un the “great successor” and chief of the ruling party and military.
“The funeral revealed some clues about who will stand beside Kim Jong-Un to protect him,” said Professor Kim Yong-Hyun of Seoul’s Dongguk University.
Apart from Mr Jang, they included senior ruling party officials Kim Ki-Nam and Choe Thae-Bok; military chief Ri Yong-Ho; armed forces minister Kim Yong-Chun; and Kim Jong-Gak, in charge of military administration and organisation.
Prof. Kim said Kim Ki-Nam and Choe Thae-Bok were symbolic figures representing the ruling party. “The other four including Mr Jang are expected to play a key role in the next government under Mr Jong-Un. They will serve as the protectors and sponsors of Jong-Un to prop up his regime,” he said.
Yang Moo-Jin of Seoul’a University of North Korean Studies said the people walking beside the hearse “played a key role under Kim Jong-Il and are expected to become the pillars of the Kim Jong-Un regime”.
The late Mr Kim inherited power from his father and founding president Kim Il-Sung before passing it on to his son.
The dynasty has been buttressed by a huge personality cult, the world’s fourth-largest military and a repressive internal security apparatus.
Mourning will officially end today with a nationwide memorial service including a three-minute silence. Trains, ships and other vehicles will sound their hooters.
The South’s Yonhap news agency quoted the head of Seoul’s National Intelligence Service, Won Sei-Hoon, as telling lawmakers that the North appears likely to continue the policies of its late leader.