North Korean labor class and workers attend the 30th anniversay of Kim Il-sung's death in North Korea, in this photo provided by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency, July 5. Yonhap North Korea's state media highlighted the country's leader Kim Jong-un's major military achievements Monday, the 30th anniversary of the death of state founder Kim Il-sung, in a move seen aimed at intensifying the personality cult for the current leader. There have been no media reports of Kim Jong-un visiting the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, where the embalmed bodies of the current leader's father, Kim Jong-il, and grandfather, Kim Il-sung, lie in state.
Since taking office in late 2011, the North's leader Kim has visited the mausoleum every time on the death anniversaries of the national founder, except in 2018. Kim Il-sung died of heart failure on July 8, 1994, at age 82, opening the way for his son, Kim Jong-il, to take over in communism's first hereditary succession of power. The Rodong Sinmun, the North's main newspaper, carried reports commemorating Kim Il-sung's death on its front and other pages.
But it also lauded Kim Jong-un's major military accomplishments, saying he has succeeded in bolstering the "self-reliant military capability," a feat that had not been achieved under the former leaders. Kim Il-sung is long known as the role model for Kim Jong-un, whose hair and fashion style were reminiscent of those of his grandfather. But North Korea appears to be reinforcing the pe.
