News Analysis |
To celebrate the successful launch of its long-range intercontinental ballistic missile, North Korea (NK) held a mass celebrations in the capital Pyongyang. Thousands of the soldiers and the citizens crowded the streets of the capital to celebrate the ‘tremendous success’, after the powerful dictator Kim declared the country a nuclear power.
The pictures released of the event showed the troops and people cheering and laughing proudly as a magnificent fire display lit up the Kim II-Sung Square. The socialist state had launched a Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile on Wednesday.
Is the economic oppression a price worth it? Only the celebrating crowd in Pyongyang could have given an adequate answer, not the propaganda pictures floated by the state-run KCNA.
The state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in a statement that NK is officially a nuclear state after the successful test on November 29. It stated, ‘Kim Jong-un declared with pride that now we have finally realized the great historic cause of completing the state nuclear force, the cause of building a rocket power’.
Kim also declared that now the NK has developed a capability to hit almost anywhere in the world. The Hwasong-15 missile reached an altitude of around 2780 miles which is more than ten times the height of the international space station and flew 600 miles during its 30-minute flight, according to the KCNA broadcast.
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One of the banners in the crowd read, ‘we heartily celebrate the successful test launch of the Hwasong-15 which showed Chosun (North Korea’s) power and greatness to the whole world’. The acknowledgment from South Korea that this new version of the Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile had actually reached a maximum altitude of 4,500 kilometers and is believed to have flown a distance of about 960 km has given increasing credentials to the claims of having the capability to hit mainland US.
America had always appeared to be desperate to change the regime in North Korea. But, a question arises here that if U.S., Russia, China, and others can produce the modern Nuclear weapons to ensure sovereignty, why can’t North Korea?
Though, NK had gone into slumber in recent times and had not fired a missile since launching a rocket about ten-weeks before the lunch of this intercontinental missile. The tensions between US and NK had risen after NK accelerated its missile program and leaders of both the countries exchanged bitter war of words.
In the response to this lunch, US has warned NK in a statement that ‘Kim Jong-Un’s regime would be “utterly destroyed” if its pursuit of a long-range nuclear missile arsenal provokes a military clash, and has battled to maintain international solidarity in the face of North Korea’s nuclear threat’.
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NK may have chosen a wrong route as it failed to reform the country’s economic structure and other institutions. It may have acquired the nuclear weapon and capability to hit its long-term capitalistic enemy, but it has failed its ordinary people suffering from malnutrition, hunger and extreme brutality. People of NK has paid a humongous price for this glory.
One of the banners in the crowd read, ‘we heartily celebrate the successful test launch of the Hwasong-15 which showed Chosun (North Korea’s) power and greatness to the whole world’.
America had always appeared to be desperate to change the regime in North Korea. But, a question arises here that if U.S., Russia, China, and others can produce the modern Nuclear weapons to ensure sovereignty, why can’t North Korea?
After bitter spats with Donald Trump, NK embarked on a mission of rapid progression to attain the intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons to gain much-needed assurances against the possible American aggression.
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For NK it has been more of an ideological war against the capitalistic America. NK human rights record is indeed not exemplary, but, it has attempted to prove that irrational behavior of its regime was pre-requisite to attain the national sovereignty. Is the economic oppression a price worth it? Only the celebrating crowd in Pyongyang could have given an adequate answer, not the propaganda pictures floated by the state-run KCNA.