주체109(2020)년 3월 25일 [기사]

 

Past Crimes Done by Japan to Destroy and

Plunder Cultural Artifacts in Korea

 

After illegally occupying Korea early in the last century, the Japanese imperialists had destroyed and plundered its cultural artifacts at random, adopting this as their policy.

They set Pyongyang, which was the capital of Ancient Korea (early 30th century B.C.-108 B.C.) and Koguryo Kingdom (B.C. 277-A.D. 668), and Kaesong, the capital of Koryo (918-1392), as the main points for implementing the policy.

They destroyed the ceiling of the Mausoleum of King Tongmyong to plunder all the relics from it and even committed such vandalism as splitting two large granite plate stones at the bottom of the mausoleum into pieces and removing them.

In the area of Mt Taesong in Pyongyang, they dug up as many as 1 400 ancient tombs dating back to Koguryo Kingdom.

They dug up the Mausoleum of King Kyonghyo several times by mobilizing the army and stole more than 10 carloads of relics from it.

During their colonial rule over Korea, the Japanese imperialists mercilessly destroyed at least 200 royal mausoleums and 11 000 ancient tombs.

Their policy of destroying the Korean nation's cultural artifacts was led to pillage. It is evidently proven that more than 30 000 Koryo ceramics plundered from Korea have been preserved at the Tokyo National Museum and other state and private museums, galleries, universities and temples of Japan.

The Japanese imperialists took away pagodas, statuary and Buddhist scriptures from Korea's temples and temple sites and even Koguryo tomb murals.

And they destroyed the Walled City of Pyongyang, Taesongsan Fort, Kuwolsan Fort and many other forts associated with the Korean nation's history of struggles against foreign aggressors.

In fact, the above said deeds are an unpardonable extra-large crime aimed to trample the cultural tradition and soul of the Korean nation and obliterate the nation itself.