All-girl pop band Kim Jong Un’s latest propaganda weapon
WASHINGTON — The smiling, headbobbing, saluting women of the Moranbong Band possess all the hallmarks of your typical Korean-pop group. Clad in miniskirts and high heels, they perform under flashing lights on dramatic, largerthan-life sets. They infuse western pop flavour with a Korean twist.
But the Moranbong members exist in their own league, having each been handpicked by North Korea’s supreme leader, Kim Jong Un.
Started in 2012, the girl group is an incarnation of former leader Kim Jong Il’s Pochonbo Electronic Ensemble. Moranbong will arrive in Beijing this weekend for “friendship performances” meant to bolster liaisons with China, a longstanding North Korean ally that has had strained relations with the authoritarian state since Kim Jong Un came to power in 2011.
The “worldwide stylish band,” in the words of North Korea state news agency KCNA, travels to Beijing at an opportune time: On Thursday, the UN Security Council, of which China is a veto-wielding permanent member, is slated to address allegations of North Korea’s human rights abuses.
A 400-page UN Human Rights Commission report released last February detailed “unspeakable atrocities” whose “gravity, scale and nature” are said to have no parallel in the contemporary world. Documents cited “crimes against humanity” as evidenced by testimony from political prisoners who said they were used for martial arts practice and had to watch their families being murdered.
The inquiry’s findings are a dark contrast to the boisterous national front presented by the Moranbong Band, which seems edgy but is still essentially a military orchestra, with hits including With Pride and My Country is the Best!