Mick Hartley

How better to stoke the fires of anti-American feelings than a visit to the Sinchon Museum of American War Atrocities? From the Daily NK:

Amid stern U.S. rhetoric on North Korea, the regime is ratcheting up its efforts to increase hostility among its population toward Americans. These efforts include an uptick in compulsory visits to the Sinchon Museum of American War Atrocities, a longstanding fixture of anti-American education aimed at ‘ideologically arming’ the population.

"The number of students visiting the Sinchon Museum has significantly increased. A lot of state-run enterprises are also sending their employees on field trips to the museum, and despite the fact that it’s currently the sowing season, even farmers are being mobilized for visits," a source in South Hwanghae Province told Daily NK on April 18.

Sinchon Museum was built to document alleged atrocities committed by the United States, and opened on June 25th, 1960, the day of the 10th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War. The site maintains exhibits that the North alleges are evidence of the U.S. military’s war atrocities, including the killing of some 35,000 North Korean civilians.

The regime has recently designated June and July, which include the Day of Victory in the Great Fatherland Liberation War (anniversary of the Korean War Armistice), as the months of anti-imperialism and anti-American struggle.

"Residents are not welcoming the orders to visit the museum in spring when their entire livelihood for the year depends on this period. They point out that the museum will always be there and there’s plenty of time for anti-American lectures in future. But now is a critical time for farming, so it’s a very unwelcome interruption,” the source said.

The alleged Sinchon Massacre, though a key topic in North Korean propaganda, is not notably supported by anything like evidence, or similar Western-privileged appeals to "truth" and the like. More info here:

According to [Bruce] Cumings, only the Korean Military Advisor Group (KMAG) could have witnessed the massacre, but he argues that it was likely carried out by Koreans against Koreans, and notably by communists opposed to Kim Il-sung. Indeed, during the pre-war period, on March 15, 1947, Kim Il-sung criticized factionalist elements in the county; he later denounced anti-regime violence in Hwanghae province more generally in February 1948 and again in August 1949. Sincheon County being an unstable area, the occupation by American troops may have been an occasion for settling scores among Koreans between October and December 1950.

See also Adam Cathcart's Notes on the Sinchon Massacre.

Whatever may or may not have happened back in 1950, there's no doubt about the centrality of the museum to official North Korean history. As well as being a compulsory destination for North Koreans, it's a regular site of pilgrimage by useful idiots on the left.

The museum illustrations are….graphic:

Or see this flickr album.