US News

North Korean state TV loops old footage as Kim Jong Il’s funeral reportedly begins

PYONGYANG, North Korea — Two hours after the funeral for Kim Jong Il was expected to start Wednesday, it remained unclear whether North Korean state television would air any live footage of the event.

While South Korean media reported the funeral was expected to start at 10:00am local time in Pyongyang, North Korean television spent nearly two hours airing historical footage of the reclusive dictator — showing his supposed triumphs from a career spent presiding over a treacherous famine that kept his people in starvation.

Earlier, the station looped footage of mourners paying their respects to Kim over the past week. Kim died of a heart attack Dec. 17 at age 69, according to state media

Russia’s Itar-Tass state-owned news agency reported that the funeral ceremony had started Wednesday morning at the Kumsusan Memorial Palace where Kim’s body has been lying in state for the past week.

The report was unconfirmed, however, as North Korean media reported that no foreigners — even from allies Russia and China — were invited to the funeral.

Few details about the funeral ceremony have been released, including whether a religious tribute will be allowed, The Wall Street Journal reported.

North Korea generally discourages religious practice and its media routinely criticizes the role that missionaries played in the region a century ago. The government has long appropriated Christian imagery in veneration of the Kim family, aiming to establish a cult of personality that borders on religious fervor.

It is also unclear whether Kim’s body, which has been on display for visitors in a Pyongyang palace, will remain there or be interred afterward. The body of his father, North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, is on display in another part of the palace, which tourists visit regularly.

A group of embalmers from Russia had left for Pyongyang on Sunday, according to a reported in the Korea JoongAng Daily which was cited by AFP. Russian experts also embalmed the corpse of Kim Il Sung.

Kim Jong Il presided over a 1990s famine that saw hundreds of thousands of people die, but still found the funds for a nuclear weapons program. There are still chronic shortages and UN agencies have said six million people — a quarter of the population — urgently need food.

Regardless, hundreds of thousands were expected to gather Wednesday on Pyongyang’s streets to bid farewell to their late leader.

North Korea’s state media announced last week that a nationwide memorial service will also be held at noon Thursday, when citizens will be asked to observe three minutes of silence.

As part of the tribute, gun volleys will be fired in Pyongyang and nine other provincial capitals. Then, trains, ships and cars across the country will blow whistles and sirens, the state news agency said.

In 1994, after Kim Il Sung died, his funeral was delayed for several days for reasons that weren’t revealed. It was also closed to outsiders and wasn’t broadcast.