The Sukarno Education Foundation, set up to honor and spread the ideas of Indonesia’s first president, has given the Sukarno Award for global statesmanship to the supreme leader of the “Democratic” People’s Republic of Korea, Kim Jong-Un.
“Kim Jong-Un has proven himself consistent in continuing to implement the ideas of their great leader, namely Kim Il Sung, in the fight against imperialism,” said Rachmawati Sukarnoputri, Sukarno Education Foundation Chairman and founder of the Association of Friendship between Indonesia and North Korea, after meeting North Korean ambassador, Ri Jong Ryul, on Thursday as quoted by Kompas.
The third child of the late President Sukarno, Rachmawati said Kim Jong-Un’s tenacity in the fight against imperialism is in line with Soekarno ideals about battling neo-colonial imperialism.
This is not the first time the Sukarno Educational Foundation has given the award to a member of the Kim family. In 2001, it presented the award posthumously to Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong-Un’s grandfather and the father of the modern North Korean totalitarian state.
The Sukarno Education Foundation is free to give awards to whoever they like (considering Indonesia is no longer an authoritarian dictatorship, unlike some countries). But perhaps giving an award to a man presiding over a government that has been accused of horrific human rights abuses is not the best way to honor the memory of our country’s first president. Just sayin’.
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