North Korea has prominently displayed a picture of South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol at its indoctrination centre in Pyongyang, branding him the “vicious main culprit” behind the hostilities between the two countries.
Revisions have been made to the exhibit at the Central Class Education House — an institution in the capital dedicated to fostering hostility towards South Korea, Japan and the US — for its 27 November edition, according to pictures published in Rodong Sinmun.
The display is part of a broader effort by North Korea to undo decades of indoctrination after leader Kim Jong-un abandoned unification with South Korea as a goal at the beginning of this year and denounced the neighbouring country as his “No 1 enemy”.
Pyongyang has amended its constitution to declare South Korea a “hostile state”, pulled out of treaties, demolished unification monuments, and blown up road and railway links connecting the two nations as tensions on the Korean peninsula have risen over the past year.
The North has denounced Mr Yoon for forging closer ties with Washington as well as the South’s joint military exercises with the US and Japan that have seen American warships sail close to North Korean waters.
The exhibit features a picture of him visiting a military unit with the caption: “The venomous remarks of scoundrel Yoon Suk Yeol causing destruction.”
The picture is titled: “The vicious main culprit of the confrontation mentality against the Republic”. North Korea is formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The display also denounces the South’s military slogan “Immediately, Strongly and To the End”, which is employed as a response to alleged provocations by the North.
It targets South Korea’s alliance with the US as well, describing it as an “aggressive treaty”.
The caption of a picture from the 45th South Korea-US Security Consultative Meeting describes the annual defence dialogue as a “platform for discussion of nuclear war provocations”.
South Korea’s unification ministry confirmed the exhibition of the pictures at the Central Class Education House. “These changes seem to be one of North Korea’s attempts to dismantle the idea of unification and intensify class indoctrination aimed at fostering hostility towards South Korea,” an unnamed ministry official was quoted as saying by the Korean Herald.
The Central Class Education House, inaugurated in 2016, serves as a hub for anti-West and anti-South Korea propaganda. It features over 1,600 photos and more than 100 pieces of artwork that highlight what Pyongyang describes as the “barbarous, vicious, and cruel nature” of the US and its allies.