The Olympic torch began its first-ever run through North Korea on Monday, where the flame was assured of a trip free of the anti-Chinese protests that marked other legs of the relay.
An attentive and peaceful crowd of thousands watched the start of the relay in Pyongyang, some waving Chinese flags, in live footage from broadcaster APTN. The event was presided over by the head of the country’s rubber-stamp parliament who often acts as a ceremonial state leader, Kim Yong Nam.
The North, an ally of its communist neighbor China, has been critical of disruptions to the torch relay elsewhere and has supported Beijing in its crackdown against violent protests in Tibet. North Korea is one of the world’s most tightly controlled countries, where citizens are not allowed to travel freely and civil rights are restricted by the iron-fisted regime.
Kim passed the torch to the first runner Pak Du Ik, who played on the 1966 North Korean World Cup soccer team that made a historic run to the quarterfinals. As he began the 12-mile route through Pyongyang, thousands more cheering people lined city streets waving pink paper flowers and small flags with the Beijing Olympics logo.
The relay began from beneath the large sculpted flame that tops the obelisk of the Juche Tower, which commemorates the national ideology of “self-reliance” created by the country’s late founding President Kim Il Sung, father of current leader Kim Jong Il. Kim Jong Il was not seen at the event.
The U.N. children’s agency UNICEF had been asked to participate in the North Korean leg of the relay but withdrew in March, saying that it wasn’t sure the event would help its mission of raising awareness of conditions for children.
The North’s children are often the most at-risk for starvation in the regular food shortages that plague the country. The problem is expected to be more severe this year due to poor harvests caused by massive floods last summer that wiped out large swaths of the country’s most productive farmland.
The torch arrived Monday in North Korea by plane from rival South Korea, where China’s treatment of North Korean refugees sparked protests against the relay.
On Sunday, clashes broke out in Seoul near the relay start between a group of 500 Chinese supporters and about 50 demonstrators criticizing Beijing’s policies, carrying a banner reading, “Free North Korean refugees in China.” The students threw stones and water bottles as some 2,500 police tried to keep the two sides apart.
One Chinese student swatted at the demonstrators with a flagpole. Another student was arrested for allegedly throwing rocks, police said.
Police said four other people were arrested for trying to disrupt the relay
Authorities deployed some 8,000 police — some riding horses and bicycles — to protect the torch.
One North Korean defector poured gasoline on himself in the middle of a street along the route and tried to set himself on fire, but police quickly surrounded him and carried him away. The man, 45-year-old Son Jong Hoon, had led an unsuccessful public campaign to save his brother from execution in the North, where he was accused of spying after the two met secretly in China.
South Korea’s Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Yong-joon expressed strong regret over the clashes in a meeting Monday with China’s ambassador to Seoul, Ning Fukui.
Ning also said he regretted the “extreme behavior” by some young Chinese and expressed his sympathies to police and a journalist who was injured, the South’s Foreign Ministry said.
