Meeting Held on Yo’np’yo’ng Island Shelling Anniversary

View of participants at a joint meeting on the 2nd anniversary of the Yo’np’yo’ng Island shelling by the Korean People’s Army (KPA), held at P’yo’nghwa Seaside Culture Farm in Kangyo’ng County, South Hwanghae Province, on 23 November 2012 (Photo: Rodong Sinmun)

DPRK state media reported on 23 November (Friday) that a joint meeting was held at P’yo’nghwa Seaside Culture Farm in South Hwanghae Province on the occasion of when the “Korean People’s Army [KPA] fired retaliatory shells at the south Korean warmongers who preempted fire at the north, giving them bitter defeat nearly 60 years after the Korean War.”  Attending the meeting were Col. Gen. Pyon In Son, commanding officer of the IV Army Corps, Choe Jong Ryong, Chairman of the South Hwanghae Provincial People’s Committee, KPA “service personnel and officials, people, youth and students of Kangryong County.”  KCNA reported that “people, youth and students warmly congratulated the service personnel who performed feats in the Yonp’yo’ng Island shelling by putting garlands around their necks and giving them bouquets.”

During the meeting, speakers said that firing of artillery shells by KPA forces on 23 November 2010, which resulted in the deaths of two ROK Marines and two ROK civilians, was “a victorious shelling was a historic event that demonstrated the spirit, mettle and invincible might of the KPA, which has been trained into an elite matchless army under the care of Generalissimo Kim Jong Il and Marshal Kim Jong Un” and that “U.S. imperialists and the Lee Myung Bak group of traitors are describing their defeat as ‘victory’ and working hard to provoke a new war, far from drawing a lesson from their disgraceful defeat in the shelling but they can never overpower the army and people united close around the dear respected Supreme Commander Kim Jong Un.”

According to KCNA “the service personnel of the southwestern front solemnly pledged before the country and people to mercilessly defeat the provokers and achieve national reunification by leading the second skirmish of Yonphyong Island to victory” and that speakers at the meeting “said that they will firmly safeguard the southwestern gate to the Supreme Command with artillery pieces and take the lead in making a breakthrough toward the reunification of the country as befitting a unit which performed heroic feats by mercilessly showering shells on the enemies and winning a great victory.”