The national flag of the DPRK has been an inspiring banner for all the Korean people in its long history of nearly 80 years. The preceding generations of Korean compatriots in Japan held high the national flag with a strong sense of pride in being members of the Korean nation, though they lived in a foreign country.

One day in September 1948 Koreans living in Osaka, Japan, were told by a fellow compatriot who had been to the homeland at the risk of his life that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was founded. After telling them the news, the man produced the national flag of the DPRK bearing a five-pointed star from under his coat.

To the Korean compatriots who had been taken away to Japan and subjected to every sort of maltreatment and humiliation, it was much more than a flag. It represented their homeland they longed to return to even in their dreams and a symbol of faith that they had a genuine homeland.

They decided to hold a meeting and inform all the fellow compatriots across the region of the birth of the DPRK and fly the national flag not only in meeting place but also in other parts of Osaka. Soon they made arrangements to make the national flags and found a place for the meeting.

Being aware of this, the US and Japanese reactionaries made vicious attempts to prevent any kinds of celebrations of the DPRK founding from being held in Japan.

Nothing daunted, however, the Korean compatriots held a meeting, proudly declaring that they had the outstanding leader General Kim Il Sung and the dignified DPRK.

The Korean compatriots, looking up to the DPRK flags fluttering in and around the meeting place, raised cheers of jubilation shouting “Long live General Kim Il Sung !” and “Long live the DPRK!”

The DPRK flag, which was hoisted at a meeting held in September 1948 in an area of Japan to celebrate the founding of the DPRK, is on display at the Korean Revolution Museum in the central part of the DPRK’s capital city of Pyongyang.

Those days similar meetings were held in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Sendai and other parts of Japan in the face of the vicious obstructive moves by the US and Japanese reactionaries.

The US and Japanese reactionaries arrested the organizers of the meetings and brought all of them before the military tribunal. But they could not break the firm will of the Korean compatriots to defend the DPRK flag at the cost of their lives.

As they held the country won back by Kim Il Sung dearer than their lives, the Korean compatriots in Japan could defend the DPRK flag against the obstructive and oppressive moves by the enemy in the alien land.

Still, they invariably follow the road of patriotism, defending and glorifying their sacred national flag.

May 25 this year marks the 70th anniversary of the formation of Chongryon (General Association of Korean Residents in Japan).

Kim Hyon Chol