SEOUL – North Korea put tractors and fire engines on show rather than the more usual tanks and missiles at a parade in Pyongyang early today, the nuclear-armed nation’s third procession in less than a year.
Pyongyang has continued to pursue its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes – for which it is internationally sanctioned – during the diplomatic engagement of recent years and often uses military parades to show off its latest developments.
At the last one in January – days before United States President Joe Biden’s inauguration – submarine-launched ballistic missiles rolled through Kim Il Sung Square in front of a grinning Kim Jong-un, with the official KCNA news agency describing them as the “world’s most powerful weapon”.
But today’s “paramilitary and public security forces” event was significantly less assertive, including detachments from the railways ministry, Air Koryo, and the Hungnam Fertiliser Complex, according to KCNA.
The pageant featured rifle-carrying students, personnel in gas masks and orange protective suits, and mechanised paramilitary units, with none of the participants or audience wearing face masks, images showed.
The biggest weapons on display were small artillery pieces dragged by tractors, with KCNA saying they were driven by co-operative farm workers “to pound the aggressors and their vassal forces with annihilating firepower in case of emergency”.
And instead of the giant missiles – whether real or models – that are the usual climax to a military parade, the last unit to enter the square was the public security forces’ fire brigade.
Leader Kim – wearing a pale grey Western-style suit and matching tie – appeared before the cheering crowd as fireworks went off at midnight and “extended warm greetings to all the people of the country”, KCNA reported.
It did not quote him giving a speech.
“We are closely monitoring the situation,” an official of South Korea’s Defence Ministry said. “More details require further analysis.” – AFP, September 9, 2021
