Politics

President Kim Il Sung formulated policies by incorporating all desires of the people and implemented them, finding himself among them all his life.

Among the relevant stories is that of stagnant water.

Before national liberation (August 15 1945), residents of Namdong Village (Sukchon County, South Phyongan Province) had suffered even a lack of water as well as all sorts of hardships in their life under the tyranny of the Japanese imperialists.

In this locality, only salty water could be drawn from wells, so the locals had to filter and use water from stagnant pools swarming with insects, and so they could not live long due to an unknown endemic disease. 

After the country’s liberation, during his field guidance trip, President Kim Il Sung visited the village to learn in detail about the living conditions of its residents.

He visited a house which seemed to be the poorest one in the village, and asked the head of the family for a bowl of water.

Having met the President very unexpectedly, the old man hastily entreated him not to drink the water of the village, saying that it was dirty.

Saying he wanted to have a taste of the water the villagers drank, the President repeatedly asked for the water and had a draught of it.

Then the old man was at a loss what to do, saying that the residents of the village would be punished by Heaven as they failed to dissuade the king of the country to drink stagnant water. The President told him: The king of our country are the people and I am a servant for them. It is not a serious matter that I have had just a single draught of the water, which you have drunk all your life. And I want to stay at your home this night if you only allow me to do.

That evening the President had a talk with the peasants of the village until late at night after having supper—dried radish leaf soup flavoured with soy sauce and boiled in stagnant water—at the house whose walls were built with patches of sod as the family was so poor.

The peasants ceaselessly coughed even in the presence of the President owing to their endemic disease.

That night the President could hardly sleep before determining to put an end to the people’s trouble over water.

The next day a consultative meeting of the Cabinet was held in Pyongyang under his guidance to discuss the issue of the Phyongnam irrigation project.

This was how the Phyongnam irrigation project started.

At that time, the President did not worry about only the residents of the Namdong village. 

It was his great ambition to provide quality water for domestic use to the people across the country, including peasants in the Orori Plain, who had to save even the water from melted ice or snow in winter, and people living on Osu Heights at high altitude, who it was said would die even before reaching the age of thirty due to endemic diseases caused by bad water, and irrigate fields which failed to produce full yields because of water shortage. 

Accordingly, the Kiyang, Ojidon and other irrigation projects were carried out, thus realizing the people’s cherished desire for water.