Celebrations muted for Kim's 82nd birthday bash

TOKYO (Reuter): North Korea marked yesterday the 82nd birthday of Kim Il-sung, state founder and deified "Great Leader", in muted fashion, as befits a nation in dire economic straits and isolated on the world stage.

The usual hyperbole was present in laudatory newspaper editorials and interminable speeches by dignitaries.

Premier Kang Song-san hailed his chief as "a great statesman and a genius of creation and construction...with an unexcelled clairvoyance, scientific penetration, iron will and rare leadership ability."

Yet there was nothing to match the grandiose celebrations for Kim's 80th birthday, when Pyongyang proudly played host to then Chinese president Yang Shangkun, Cambodian leader Prince (now King) Sihanouk and several other Third World leaders.

The president threw a banquet in Pyongyang for his foreign guests yesterday, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported, but this time no heads of state came, nor premiers nor major party chiefs.

"Invited to the banquet were the delegations of the National Democratic Congress of Ghana, the Socialist Party of Kazakhstan and the Workers' Party of Ireland and other high-level delegations and personages from different countries," reported KCNA, monitored in Tokyo.

Pyongyang-watchers in the South Korean capital, Seoul, believe Kim can no longer afford to lure large numbers of foreign delegations with complimentary air tickets.

There is also the question of diplomatic tensions caused by North Korea's refusal to allay world fears over its suspected nuclear weapons development.

Even China, the North's only significant ally, announced for the second year running it would send no delegation. Neither, presumably, did it repeat its highly practical 1992 gift -- a trainload of pork to help impoverished North Koreans celebrate their leader's birthday in style.

Pyongyang's economy is in crisis, as even the ruling Workers' Party was forced to admit at the end of 1993.

The Soviet bloc's demise ended long-established barter trade deals, meaning cash-starved Pyongyang must pay hard currency to import vital oil, raw materials, foodstuffs and technology.