Stories Associated with Panmunjom

Panmunjom is the historic place where the US imperialists signed a military armistice agreement, kneeling down before the Korean people in the Korean war (June 1950-July 1953).

 

The last autograph

When Chairman Kim Jong Il visited Panmunjom on November 24, 1996, he first visited the monument inscribed with President Kim Il Sung’s signature reading “Kim Il Sung July 7, 1994.”

                                        

             A monument inscribed with an autograph of President Kim Il Sung in honor of his exploits for the cause of national reunification

Before the monument the Chairman said that the signature was short, but its meaning is great and sublime. He said that the historic document signed by the President at the close of his life was related to the country’s reunification, and that he had read through the thick document all night before writing his name on it in a lively style and the date below it. The Chairman continued to say with bitter grief that the President, who had worked heart and soul for the reunification of the country, spent busy hours working to bring a reunified country to the whole nation in the last days of his life, before passing away unexpectedly just after making his last autograph to the document.

After going round the Panmun House he went to the monument again, when he said that the President had spared no pains and achieved immortal exploits for the country’s reunification indeed and that the monument was reminding him of many things. The President had worked hard for national reunification, the Chairman said, and recollected the lifelong pains and immortal exploits of the President for the country’s reunification. Then he resolutely declared that they should reunify the country at any cost true to the aspiration and will of the President.

Souvenir photo

When the Korean people were shedding tears of blood over the greatest loss of the nation, the demise of Chairman Kim Jong Il, the enemy was making desperate attempts to start a war against the DPRK while asserting there would be an “emergency” and “change of system” in the DPRK. So a touch-and-go situation prevailed in the Korean peninsula.

At this juncture, in March 2012, supreme leader of the DPRK Kim Jong Un visited Panmunjom in the daytime. He went to see the above-mentioned monument first. In front of it he said that he appreciated President Kim Il Sung’s painstaking, lifelong efforts for national reunification. Chairman Kim Jong Il saw to it that the monument was erected at Panmunjom in honor of the noble idea of loving the country and the people kept by the President who had put his heart and soul in the cause of reunification until the last moment of his life, Kim Jong Un said, and asked his accompanying officials to take a souvenir photo against the background of the monument, to the effect that they reaffirmed their will to accomplish the life-long wish of the President and the Chairman with credit. Then he went to the balcony of a building under the enemy’s nose and watched the southern land with binoculars only scores of meters away.

That day he stressed that the room where the armistice talks were held and the place where the armistice agreement was signed—which are both associated with the historic victory in the Fatherland Liberation War against the allied imperialist forces, and the Panmun House and Thongil House representing the Korean people’s will of reunification should be well preserved in order to hand them down to the coming generations who will live in a reunified country.