Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 20, 1994 TAG: 9407200086
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA LENGTH: Short
In a carefully orchestrated display of national grief, North Korea provided scenes of Kim's funeral and its emotional aftermath to South Korean and Japanese television.
``The Great Leader Will Always Be with Us,'' read a banner headline in one official newspaper. ``The People Bid a Last Goodbye ... in Bitter Sorrow,'' read another.
Kim, the only leader the hard-line North had ever known, died July 8 at 82 of a heart attack and apparently has been succeeded by his son Kim Jong Il, 52.
In the official footage, a flower-bedecked hearse slowly made its way along the broad boulevards of North Korea's capital, Pyongyang, with weeping mourners lining the route. A military honor guard followed the motorcade, and a giant portrait of Kim was paraded ahead of it.
Official North Korean media said 2 million people crowded the capital's streets to watch Kim's coffin, draped in the red flag of his Communist Workers' Party, pass by. Korean mourning tradition dictates that the hearse should be driven past sites associated with the dead person's life. Pyongyang is full of monuments to Kim, who during his nearly five decades of rule was the center of a pervasive personality cult.
``I just cannot believe that you are gone,'' a woman wailed as she clutched a companion's hand. ``You have been our heaven, our teacher, our friend.''
The funeral itself was a secretive affair. Only top officials attended the hourlong ceremony.
by CNB