North Korean Media on Jeon Du-hwan's Death: "Cursed Even on the Road to the Afterlife"

On the afternoon of the 23rd, when former President Jeon Du-hwan passed away, a funeral hall was set up at Severance Hospital Sinchon Funeral Hall in Seodaemun-gu, Seoul. [Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Jeong Dong-hoon] North Korea's propaganda media criticized former President Jeon Du-hwan, who died on the 23rd, as "a villain who received the curse and condemnation of the southern people's sentiment even on the way to the afterlife."

North Korea's external weekly magazine Tongil Sinbo reported on the 27th that "He (former President Jeon Du-hwan) was a heinous murderer who seized power through the December 12 military coup in South Korea and drowned the entire city of Gwangju in a sea of blood," announcing the news of the former president's death.

The media stated, "He stained both hands with the blood of the people, seized power, and committed unforgivable, horrifying crimes by strangling democracy, yet he never apologized to the people of South Korea until the day he went to the afterlife," and criticized him as "a masked murderer, a dictatorship fanatic, and shameless."

It further condemned the will left by the former president, saying, "Even after going to the afterlife, it is a rant about seeing the day when 'absorption unification' will happen. How much of an anti-unification figure obsessed with inter-Korean confrontation he is."

The former president left a de facto will in his memoir published in 2017, expressing hope for absorption unification following the collapse of the North Korean regime, saying, "The day when the Kim Il-sung dynasty falls and the homeland is unified, I feel that day is near," and "If my life ends before that, I want to remain as a skeleton on some hill in the front line where the northern land is visible and definitely witness the day of unification."