Korean Friendship Association
The Korean Friendship Association (KFA) is an international solidarity organization for the government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea .
Assignments and history
The main purpose is to represent North Korea from the point of view of the North Korean government and to support its policies without criticism. To this end, the KFA works closely with the Committee for Cultural Relations in Pyongyang . Alejandro Cao de Benos de Les y Pérez founded the KFA in November 2000 and is the self-appointed President of the KFA. The KFA claims to have over 8,000 members in 120 countries.
The President of the Supreme People's Assembly , Kim Yong-nam , described the KFA as "the locomotive of international solidarity and defense of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea against the attacks of the united imperialists and their media campaign against North Korea."
The KFA organizes delegation trips to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and allegedly also supports joint venture business people.
criticism
Journalist David Scofield, a former professor at the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, described in the Asia Times article "Kim Jong-il's Useful Idiots in the West" in 2005 , as the KFA did by most North Korea observers is seen:
The group’s activities include “information seminars” advocating the enlightening goodness of Kim’s rule as part of the KFA’s 'alternative' view of North Korea. The ragged and miserable portrayal of poverty and hunger is faded out, other North Korean voices apart from those of Kim Jong-il's subordinates are conspicuously absent. Instead of the inconvenient truth, the KFA offers vacation photos from 'their' North Korea, taken on recent government-sponsored visits, complete with bowling, golf, amusement parks, and karaoke with young ladies from the party. KFA members write fervent hymns of praise as special gifts to extol Kim Jong-il's wise rule. No people starving, torture, mass executions, misery or despair in North Korea by the Korean Friendship Association. Only golf, banquets and evenings in the company of Kim Jong-il's beauties. "
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Alejandro Cao de Benos: Korea - The Songun Citadel . Bangkok, 2009, p. 142
- ↑ David Scofield: Kim Jong-il's 'useful idiots' in the West. In: Asia Times Online. February 3, 2005, accessed October 4, 2008 .