• Friday, 29 April 2022 | 14:43
• News
• By : mountpaektufestival.org

Damian Uzoma Ogbonna, Co-chairperson, the Organizing Committee of International Festival in Praise of Great Persons of Mt. Paektu, and President, African Committee of Friendship and Solidarity with the Korean People National Chairman, Peoples Progressive Party of Nigeria

Respected Co-chairmen, vice-chairpersons, secretaries and members,

Dear leading members of organizations of friendship and solidarity with the Korean people,

Dear comrades and friends,
First of all, I would like to extend warm congratulations and heartfelt thanks to all of you present here in today's enlarged meeting in a joy of grandly celebrating the birthdays of President Kim Il Sung and Leader Kim Jong Il of Korea, the outstanding leaders of the cause of global independence, as the holidays common to humankind, in response to the Letter of Notification released in the Jan 7th Consultative Meeting of the Leading Members of the Organizing Committee of International Festival in Praise of Great Persons of Mt. Paektu.

Availing myself of this opportunity, I would also like to express my deepest thanks again to all the OCIFPGPP members and the personnel in different countries for delivering positive and sincere contribution to the OCIFGPP activities all the time for the last four years since the formation of the organization and especially for initiating and successfully implementing the activities of friendship and solidarity with the Korean people one after another braving all kinds of challenges and difficulties and even painful sacrifices, despite the unfavorable conditions due to the global health crisis for more than two years.

Dear comrades and friends,
As you might remember, the OCIFPGPP opened a Consultative Meeting on January 7th, where we reached a common agreement that 2022 is a year of special significance for the progressive humanity since it marks the 110th birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung and the 80th birth anniversary of Leader Kim Jong Il who made immortal contribution to the prosperity and development of Korea and the cause of global independence as well as the 10th anniversary of having H.E Kim Jong Un in the highest post of the Party and State of Korea. In this sense, we issued a Letter of Notification that set forth the orientation of the activities to celebrate the Day of the Sun and the Day of the Shining star together with the Korean people.

Above all, the OCIFPGPP set the International Celebration Period to celebrate the 110th birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung and the 80th birth anniversary of Leader Kim Jong Il as the auspicious holidays common to humanity and we creditably carried out the decisions to elevate the festive mood on the worldwide scale.

The OCIFPGPP gave inspirations and coordination to the various celebration activities on a global scale after the national and regional preparatory committees were formed, during the International Celebration Period from February that marks the Day of the Shining Star, the birthday of Leader Kim Jong Il to April that greets the Day of the Sun, the birthday of President Kim Il Sung.

Beforehand, the preparatory committees in celebration of the 110th birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung and the 80th birth anniversary of Leader Kim Jong Il were formed in the Asia-Pacific region, the Oceanian region, the Philippines and the Korean Friendship Association last year, and in the wake, some 100 celebration committees were formed in the Arab region and around 50 countries to totalize roughly early this year. If you add up the preparatory committees of the individual organizations, the number must grow much more.

I am proud to say that the OCIFPGPP members and the leading members of the organizations of friendship and solidarity with the Korean people and international democratic organizations in different countries are always playing the pivotal role in ensuring that the preparatory committees were formed in different parts of the world to celebrate the meaningful holidays.

The OCIFPGPP presented with due respect a floral basket to H.E. Kim Jong Un on his birthday early this year and consecutively on the birthdays of President Kim Il Sung and Leader Kim Jong Il, thus contributing positively to brisking up the international festive mood.

Meanwhile, the friendship and solidarity organizations and personnel from all strata in China, Mongolia, Switzerland, UK, Sweden, Peru, Ecuador, Palestine, Japan and other countries presented floral baskets to H.E Kim Jong Un and the bronze statutes of President Kim Il Sung and Leader Kim Jong Il. In doing so, they demonstrated their boundless admiration to the world.

The photos of more than 10 floral baskets to the peerlessly great men of Korea were carried on the E-Celebration Forum, "Kim Il Sung: the Eternal Sun of Humankind" on the occasion of the 110th birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung, thereby adorning the E-Celebration Forum colorful.

Notably, Las Naves Municipality, Bolivar Province, Ecuador conferred the titles of honorary citizenship to President Kim Il Sung, Leader Kim Jong Il and H. E Kim Jong Un, which was widely made known throughout the world.  Our special thanks go to Mr. Julio Ballesteros Espin, President of Guaranda Association for the Friendship, Culture and Solidarity with Korean People, Ecuador for playing the decisive role in conferring the honorary titles to the peerlessly great men of Korea.

During the International Celebration Period, the preparatory committees and organizations presented the congratulatory messages to H.E Kim Jong Un, from Nepal, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Australia, Russia, Belarus, Czech, Switzerland, UK, Sweden, Nigeria, Egypt, Democratic Congo, Algeria, Libya, Cuba, Mexico, Ecuador, etc and they also largely organized and held celebration gatherings, lectures, seminars on the works, gatherings for reading, film shows, photo and book shows, art performances, congratulation visits to the DPRK embassies and other events by various format and ways.

Besides, the news of the events and commemorative writings and speeches were widely spread via newspapers, TV, news, websites, Youtube and facebook in different countries and regions.

I would like to highlight that during the International Celebration Period, all the preparatory committees and organizations launched all their activities in organic correlation with the celebration of the 10th anniversary of having H.E Kim Jong Un in the highest post of Korea.

As you might all know, H.E Kim Jong Un faithfully succeeded to the ideology and leadership of the preceding leaders and brought about a golden age of unprecedented prosperity and thriving in Korea for the last 10 years, no more than a moment of the human history, thus leading the DPRK to stand aloft in the center of the world politics.

I am proud to summarize that the decision in the Letter of Notification was executed to perfection, as stipulated in it that it is the righteous duty and obligation of the world progressive peoples to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the election of H. E Kim Jong Un, another great man who is identical to President Kim Il Sung and Leader Kim Jong Il in ideology, leadership and virtues.

Dear comrades and friends,
The OCIFPGPP organized and held the international events in a grand and distinctive style in celebration of the 110th birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung and the 80th birth anniversary of Leader Kim Jong Il and thus won success and experiences which will serve as priceless assets for our future work.

The OCIFPGPP decided to organize the colorful and distinctive international events by utilizing the tools of the Internet to cope with the current global health crisis and grandly held the International E-seminar, “Kim Jong Il: Eternal Incarnation of Juche Korea” and Online Photo Exhibition, “Mt. Paektu” on the occasion of the 80th birth anniversary of Leader Kim Jong Il in February and the E-Celebration Forum “Kim Il Sung: Eternal Sun of Humankind”  on the occasion of the 110th birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung in April.

To look back, the OCIFPGPP had hosted several International E-seminars since its formation in April, 2018.

The typical examples were the E-seminar “Great Man of the Century” on the 25th anniversary of the demise of President Kim Il Sung in July, 2019 and the E-seminar “Korea: Ever-Victorious with Independence” on the 75th founding anniversary of the Workers’ Party of Korea.

Based on such success and experiences, the International E-seminar “Kim Jong Il: Eternal Incarnation of Juche Korea”, co-hosted by the OCIFPGPP and Indonesia-Korea Friendship and Cultural Exchange, was registered as the largest and grandest of all the seminars so far, as it uploaded around 100 writings, poems of admiration and congratulatory letters that over 60 countries and 7 international and regional organizations contributed to the E-seminar.

On the other hand, the Online Photo Exhibition, “Mt. Paektu” also attracted the universal attention and interest as it was differently made up with photos which show the greatness and exploits of Leader Kim Jong Il who was born as the son of partisans on Mt. Paektu and made an undying contribution to the Korean revolution and the cause of global independence, the landscape photos that depicted a complete change of Samjiyon area and the photos taken personally by Roger Shepherd, a hiker of New Zealand which show the landscape of Mt.Paektu.

Especially, the E-seminar and Online Photo Exhibition became much more significant for being hosted via the recently-opened website of the OCIFPGPP.

I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to Mr. Teguh Santosa, Director of Public Information of the Asia-Pacific Regional Committee for Peaceful Reunification of Korea and Secretary General of Indonesia-Korea Friendship and Cultural Exchange for opening a new website of the OCIFPGPP and playing a decisive role in organizing the international events in a grand style on the occasion of the 80th birth anniversary of Leader Kim Jong Il.

Following the February international events, the E-Celebration Forum “Kim Il Sung- Eternal Sun of Humankind” was splendidly co-hosted by the OCIFPGPP and the Korean Friendship Association in April on the occasion of the 110th birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung.

The Korean Friendship Association exerted efforts and devotion to the successful opening and process of the Forum to perpetuate and glorify the lifelong feats of President              Kim Il Sung who is boundlessly respected and praised as the author of the Juche Idea and the pioneer and leader of the era of independence by the world progressive peoples.

The E-Celebration Forum, composed of 4 sections- “Photo Gallery”, “Celebration Forum”, “Praise for the Great Man”, “For the Just Cause of the Korean people”, was brilliantly decked with the various contents of videos, photos, congratulation speeches and letters, presentations, songs and poems, i.e. the photos which show President Kim Il Sung’s lifelong exploits, the videos that personages from different countries visit Mangyongdae and sing songs and poems that they personally wrote and composed in praise of President, the videos and photos which show the celebration activities taken place in different countries on the occasion of the Day of the Sun, the international solidarity activities in support of the Korean people in their just cause and the introductory materials of the 32nd April Spring Friendship Art Festival.

I would like to express our deep gratitude to Mr. Alejandro Cao de Benos, Chairman of the Korean Friendship Association and representatives of the branches in different countries for delivering valuable contribution to the events by specially designing and operating the E-Celebration Forum and inspiring most of the branches to join both the February International E-Seminar and the April E-Celebration Forum.

As above, it can be concluded that the OCIFPGPP fully played its leading and key role in elevating the international festive mood to praise the peerlessly great persons of Korea in close communication with the friendship and solidarity organizations and international democratic organizations in accordance with the expectations and desire of the world progressive peoples for two months of the International Celebration Period.

Based on the success and experiences, we should liven up the festive mood elevated during the International Celebration Period by organizing and unfolding the activities more briskly in different countries and regions to laud the great persons and to promote the reality of Korea in an objective way and support the Korean people with the unyielding spirit in their just cause to achieve peace and security on the Korean peninsula and its region, and those of the world.

I remain confident that this Enlarged Meeting will serve as a significant and important opportunity in radically augmenting the role of the OCIFPGPP by building up the success and experiences that were gained during the International Celebration Period and by keeping close contact, communication and unity among the personages from different countries including the representatives of the organizations of friendship and solidarity with the Korean people and the international democratic organizations.

Lastly but not the least, I, on behalf of the OCIFPGPP, would like to express once again our sincere gratitude to the friends of the Korean people, all the OCIFPGPP members and organizations of friendship and solidarity with the Korean people and the international democratic organizations for working closely with one another and rendering profuse efforts and support to the success of several rounds of international events on a global scale.

Thank you.