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When I heard the sorrowful news on his death I was a mere child for it was 20 years before from now.
It was nine years after the institute was inaugurated when I was born.
The news was shocking because I also belonged to the rank of sympathizers with Korea.
At the time I could not understand the Korean people's deep love of the great leader with my way of thinking accustomed to the Western way of life.
I went so far as to think it an exaggeration the way many of them living in this side of the world were thinking. All I knew about the DPRK was what I heard from my parents and have seen in the photographs and videos.
One day I found a rendition of his words “Seeing is believing”. It attracted my interest in his life and exploits though I was young.
However, I could not yet understand the affection of the Korean people to him whom I got to know in my childhood.
I still remember that my family was to the memorial ceremony held in the DPRK embassy in Lima and at home we burnt the candle all night looking back upon the memory of the deceased. But I could not understand why my father, a man of discipline and leftist carder in Peru, was as overwhelmed by sorrow as Koreans were.
When I was talking with my father at the ceremony and a memorial service at home, I did not ask why father showed such a love, admiration and friendly feeling to him.
My father knew about him very well and thought it greatly proud of being a friend of the President as a Peruvian who met him many times (9 times). Though I read many of his books saw films and videos and heard many a story from my parents, I was not yet feeling gratitude.
It goes without saying that I felt admiration and respect knowing his great exploits made in defeating Japanese imperialism, freeing Korea, giving a good setback to US imperialists and authoring the celebrated Juche idea.
However, as was said, I was still short of as much sense of gratitude as the Koreans and my non-Korean parents felt.
I found no answer to my question until I paid my first visit to Korea in 2002. Then I began to know about overall brilliant exploits made by the great man of mankind for the first time. And at the same time I began to understand why the Koreans and my father were so grateful for President Kim Il Sung and respecting him as a father as the Korean people say.
An interpreter kindly met me alighting from an airplane. He was assigned for me to have a pleasant time during my stay in Korea. The first course of our journey was to go to Mansudae where I found many delegations with bouquets. Impressive were the statue of President Kim Il Sung and the enthusiasm of the crowds including foreigners from various countries.
The weather of February in Pyongyang was rather cold, but felt warmth as if the statue embraces us warm. On Mansudae my heart warmed and felt cheerful.
Knowing about his hard childhood I could understand his selfless benevolent heart of his departing home for the sake of the liberation of the country and happiness of the people.
On Mt. Paektu, majestic sacred mountain of revolution, I knew well what I could not understand with my distorted Western way of thinking. After having suffered cold for two hours on it I could recognize his benevolence and love for the country and people.
My yearning for him began to sprout while visiting the Kumsusan Memorial Palace (that time).
Seeing the curator and interpreter explaining with tears in their eyes I was moved by something of the life which I could not understand when my father repeatedly tried to convince me.
I have never thought there was something inexplicable. It was something my father, an influential lawyer, eloquent speaker and straightforward, could not convince me.
In the long run, I was cognizant of such a laudation, respect, love and even gratitude.
I had the luck to feel keenly the love and respect of all the people to him though he departed to the netherworld, still living in every home, hotel, every nook and corner of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. As a result, Korea became immortal great leader President Kim Il Sung's Korea. There would have been no Korea of yesterday or mysterious Korea of tomorrow without his talented image.
Afterwards I visited the DPRK twice more. Those were ten years after his death, but the love of the Korean people to him was as strong as ever. I take rather a form of reminiscence in my writing than one of a political and scientific point of view as the great leaders and intellectuals of the world do. They will also recollect the great father of the mankind. I recollect the sun which rose from Mangyongdae with my whole heart, with the love as warm as my father showed to the great sun of the mankind. ***
Yuri Castro Romero
Secretary General of the Peru-Korea Friendship and Cultural Institute
