It’s ‘Victory Day’ again in North Korea – or to be precise, the ‘Day of Victory in the Fatherland Liberation War,’ over the United States and United Nations.

For those who have wondered how Pyongyang has come to call the 50-year standoff a ‘victory,’ South Korea’s Daily North Korea, staffed by people who have escaped the land of Kim Jong-il and work to alert the outside world to what’s going on there, offer this explanation.

For the Daily North Korea, Yoo Gwan-hee writes in small part:

“The North always promotes the Korean War as ‘victorious’ primarily because it was Kim Il-sung who preemptively attacked; so if the North were to concede defeat, the subsequent failure to spread Communism across the Korean Peninsula would fall directly on him.

“According to Volume 12 of The Complete Works of Kim Il-sung, which has greater legal and moral influence than the Constitution, the Korean War is recorded as a war in which the North was invaded.

“North Korea maintains that thanks to the war, Pyongyang was able to humiliate the United States, a great power that takes pride in its long history of victory in war. From North Korea’s point of view, inflicting this humiliation alone is worthy of the word ‘victory.'”

By Yoo Gwan-hee

July 28, 2009

South Korea – Daily North Korea – Original Article (English)

“With the devotion of the Chosun People who opposed the American military invaders and Seungman Rhee’s gang of puppets, the war to liberate the Fatherland has resulted in our victory.” So reads a decree issued by Kim Il-sung dated July 27th, 1953 (Order No. 470 of the Chosun People’s Army’s Supreme Commander).