Kim Jong-Il
http://www.newstatesman.com
Dictators: The depths of evil
Jasper Becker, 04 September 2006
Jasper Becker on Kim Jong-il of North Korea
It is easy to laugh at Kim Jong-il, North Korea's "living god", but he is possibly the world's most evil
living dictator. Pictures of his victims are rarely aired in the news, but his fashion failures often are. The
bouffant hair, platform shoes and tailored jumpsuits, his hunger to taste the perfect pizza or freshest
sushi, his frustrated efforts to direct a great movie and his regular rants against the Bush-Hitler threat
can make him seem endearing. Who doesn't know people with some or all of these failings?
Yet the 63-year-old leader is responsible for the deaths of four million of his citizens. If one includes
the dead in the Korean war (1950-1953) and those who have died in labour camps since 1945, Kim
Jong-il and his father Kim Il-sung are responsible for nine million deaths. Measured against the size of
the North Korean population, the dynasty has outdone better-known Asian tyrants such as Pol Pot or
Mao Zedong.
The father-and-son dictators had surprisingly obscure origins. Kim Il-sung spent 20 years as a
Chinese Communist Party member and partisan fighter against the Japanese in Manchuria until his
forces retreated across the border to the Soviet Union. Before Japan's sudden surrender in 1945, the
Soviets planned to send him to fight the Japanese in China.
Kim Il-sung's eldest son was born in a Red Army base in the Russian Far East in 1942, the only
Korean leader in history to be born outside the country. North Koreans are taught, however, that he
was born in a partisan camp on Mount Paektu near the Chinese border, amid many heavenly portents.
Soviet archives have revealed that Stalin and Beria installed the Kim family as their puppet regime in
North Korea when the Red Army entered the country in 1945. But their charges were ill-prepared: Kim
Il-sung needed coaching because he spoke such poor Korean, and his eldest son was educated in
Russian together with children of the Soviet elite in Pyongyang.
In the early 1960s, Kim Jong-il took charge of propaganda in what had become the most regimented
society in history. Koreans had to worship the whole family, going back generations, as divinely
sanctioned saviours of the Korean nation and the whole universe. Kim became crown prince in 1974
and from then on acted as his father's chief secretary, gradually taking control of both the military and
the party apparatus. As he tightened his grip, he organised purges, dispatching tens of thousands of
North Koreans to die in penal settlements.
Kim Jr was also personally responsible for directing North Korea's intelligence operations. He had
foreign nationals abducted to train his agents to assassinate the South Korean leadership and blow up
South Korean planes. North Korea also played host to Japanese terrorists and trained many
revolutionaries from the developing world. But Kim Jong-il's greatest coup was to persuade the Soviet
Union, in 1984, to give him a nuclear reactor. By 1990, this had enabled North Korea to produce
enough plutonium for a bomb.
Kim Jong-il told his father in the 1980s that he could double the size of the military even as the
economy collapsed. By the late 1980s, North Koreans were already starving to death but Kim Jr
prevented his father from learning about the plummeting harvests. Before his death, the elder Kim
wanted to start reforms and build bridges with South Korea, and the two fell out. After his sudden
death in 1994, on the eve of a summit with the South Korean president Kim Young-sam, many North
Koreans believed that Kim Jong-il had killed his father.
Now, change is more unlikely than ever. Kim Jong-il fears he will end up like Nicolae Ceausescu of
Romania, strung up and shot, if he ever initiates reform. After soldiers and workers began starving to
death in large numbers in 1992, he resisted any real change, although the country did appeal for
international aid in 1995. In the face of civil unrest and army uprisings, Kim Jong-il organised a savage
reign of terror. He sent tanks to occupy key industrial cities and the whole population was turned out to
witness the public execution of people caught stealing food or trying to flee the country. By 1998, the
economy was in ruins and some three million had perished, but Kim continued to spend heavily on his
own lavish lifestyle and on the military. He tested the first long-range missiles which landed in the Sea
of Japan in 1998, while continuing to rely heavily on aid from the outside world.
Little has changed since then. This year, some 10,000 North Koreans have died in floods and the
survivors are on the brink of starvation, but Kim Jong-il is demanding more aid, while at the same time
threatening his neighbours by launching new missile tests. International diplomacy remains focused on
North Korea's nuclear threat, but like most dictators, Kim Jong-il has inflicted far more harm on his
own people than on his enemies.
http://www.faz.net
Nordkorea: Der Sohn des Führers
Von Petra Kolonko, 04. Juni 2009
Wird Kim Jong-un der Nachfolger seines Vaters Kim Jong-il?
Will Nordkoreas Machthaber Kim Jong-il jetzt doch einen seiner Söhne als Nachfolger einsetzen und
damit einen dritten Herrscher der „Dynastie Kim“ inthronisieren? Südkoreas Geheimdienste wollen
erfahren haben, dass Kim Jong-ils jüngster Sohn, Kim Jong-un, für die Nachfolge als Führer des
kommunistischen Staates vorgesehen ist. Und aus anderen Quellen heißt es, dass er bei den
„Wahlen“ im April entgegen den ursprünglichen Berichten doch in Nordkoreas Oberste
Volksversammlung gewählt wurde und damit auf die erste Stufe der Karriereleiter gesetzt worden ist.
Wenn diese Nachrichten stimmen, wäre das eine Sensation, denn die spärlichen Nachrichten, die es
aus Nordkorea gibt, haben bis jetzt darauf hingedeutet, dass Kim Jong-il über die langen Jahre seiner
unangefochtenen Herrschaft überhaupt nicht daran gedacht hat, seine Söhne in Führungspositionen
zu bringen. Seine beiden jüngeren Söhne hat der heute 67 Jahre alte Machthaber auf eine private
internationale Schule in Bern geschickt. Sie gaben dort nicht ihre wahren Namen an, man hielt sie
angeblich für Söhne des Fahrers der nordkoreanischen Botschaft.
Ein unerfahrener, politisch unzuverlässiger junger Mann
Kim Jong-il hat seine Söhne in einer Schule in der Schweiz erziehen lassen
In der Schweiz lernten sie Fremdsprachen und entwickelten Begeisterung für Sportarten wie
Skifahren, Fußball und Basketball. Kim Jong-il muss gewusst haben, dass eine solche Erziehung
seine Söhne nicht gerade für eine politische Laufbahn in Nordkorea empfiehlt. In einem Staat, der
nach außen abgeschlossen ist und stolz auf der „Juche-Ideologie“ der Selbständigkeit beharrt, ist eine
Schulbildung im Ausland ein Makel, der alle Funktionäre und Ideologen zu Hause misstrauisch macht.
Dass Kim Jong-il seine Söhne ins Ausland schickte, deutet eher darauf hin, dass er sie nicht für eine
politische Laufbahn vorgesehen hat.
Kim Jong-un wurde wahrscheinlich 1984 geboren. Seine Mutter war die Schauspielerin Ko Yong-hui,
die -- auch darüber wird nur spekuliert -- wahrscheinlich nicht mit Kim Jong-il verheiratet, sondern nur
eine seiner Konkubinen war. Sie starb vor einigen Jahren an Krebs. Die wenigen Informationen, die
das Ausland über den jüngsten Kim hat, stammen von einem japanischen Sushi-Koch, der für Kim
Jong-il gearbeitet hat. Er gab zu Protokoll, dass von den drei Söhnen Kim Jong-un seinem Vater am
ähnlichsten sieht und der Favorit Kim Jong-ils war.
Kim Jong-un ist 25 Jahre alt und damit für eine Führungsposition in Nordkorea sehr jung. Wenn der
junge Kim wirklich für die Nachfolge vorbereitet werden soll, wird dies nicht ohne Schwierigkeiten
durchzusetzen sein. Auch in einem diktatorischen Regime wie Nordkorea muss sich der Machthaber
an gewisse Regeln halten. Seine Führungsmannschaft und besonders das Militär, auf das sich seine
Macht stützt, werden sich nicht einfach damit abfinden, dass ihnen ein unerfahrener, politisch
unzuverlässiger junger Mann vorgesetzt wird, auch wenn er der Sohn des „Lieben Führers“ ist. Bis
zum Jahr 2012 will Kim Jong-il Nordkorea zu einer großen Nation machen. Bis dahin, so nimmt man
an, soll auch die Nachfolge geregelt sein.
+++
Nordkorea: Kim III.?
Von Peter Sturm, 03. Juni 2009
Wenn „Kreise“ in Südkorea über Interna der Führung im kommunistischen Norden der Halbinsel
berichten, ist Vorsicht geboten. Auch die Südkoreaner wissen nicht genau, was nördlich der
Demarkationslinie vorgeht. Deshalb kann es zwar sein, dass der nordkoreanische Staatsführer Kim
Jong-il seinen jüngsten Sohn als „Kim III.“ zum Nachfolger erkoren hat. Aber es ist auch möglich, dass
alles ganz anders ist.
Und selbst wenn Kim Jong-il im beschriebenen Sinne entschieden haben sollte, so ist damit
keineswegs ausgemacht, dass Kim Junior dereinst wirklich die Nachfolge antreten kann. Der Mann ist
nämlich noch sehr jung. Wieso sollte sich die nordkoreanische Armee, die in dem militarisierten Staat
die wohl wichtigste Institution ist, von einem solchen Grünschnabel Vorschriften machen lassen?
Im europäischen Mittelalter sprach man Herrscherfamilien das „Königsheil“ zu. Das machte sie im
Idealfall immun gegen Umstürze. Ganz abgesehen davon, dass die Familie Kim das „Königsheil“ nicht
verdient hat, ist auch zweifelhaft, ob es auch der nächsten Generation noch gewährt wird.
http://www.faz.net
Nordkorea: Spekulationen über Kims Nachfolge
Petra Kolonko, 02. Juni 2009
Nordkorea will nach seinem Atomtest offenbar seine Provokationen fortsetzen und plant weitere
Raketenstarts. Nach Geheimdiensterkenntnissen aus Amerika und Südkorea werden eine
Langstreckenrakete und drei Raketen mittlerer Reichweite zum Abschuss vorbereitet. Außerdem hält
Nordkorea militärische Übungen an seiner Westküste ab. Südkorea hat ein Kriegsschiff an die
Seegrenze geschickt, um etwaige Provokationen abzuwehren.
Nordkoreas Langstreckenraketen sind theoretisch in der Lage, amerikanisches Gebiet zu erreichen.
Kurz- und Mittelstreckenraketen sind vor allem eine Bedrohung für Südkorea und Japan. Japan hat
am Dienstag Pläne für ein Raketen-Frühwarnsystem gebilligt. Beobachter halten es für möglich, dass
Nordkorea die Langstreckenrakete abfeuern will, wenn Südkoreas Präsident Lee Myung-bak am 16.
Juni mit dem amerikanischen Präsidenten Obama zusammentrifft. An diesem Donnerstag will
Nordkorea auch zwei amerikanische Journalistinnen, denen unter anderem illegaler Grenzübertritt
vorgeworfen wird, vor Gericht stellen.
Wird Kim Jong-un der neue Machthaber?
Nordkoreas Machthaber Kim Jong-il hat nach Geheimdienstberichten aus Südkorea doch seinen
dritten Sohn Kim Jong-un zu seinem Nachfolger bestimmt. Die Mitteilung von dessen Nominierung sei
kurz vor dem Atomtest Nordkoreas an ranghohe Parteifunktionäre ausgegeben worden, berichtete die
südkoreanische Zeitung „Hangkook Ilbo“ am Dienstag. Angeblich müsse die nordkoreanische
Bevölkerung schon ein Loblieb auf den Kim-Sohn lernen.
Seit der 67 Jahre alte Kim Jong-il im vergangenen Sommer wahrscheinlich wegen eines
Schlaganfalles mehrere Monate nicht in der Öffentlichkeit aufgetreten war, reißen Spekulationen über
seine Nachfolge nicht ab. Kim Jong-il war nach langer Zeit der Abwesenheit wieder bei der Sitzung
des Obersten Volksversammlung erschienen, die ihn wieder zum Vorsitzenden der Nationalen
Verteidigungskommission wählte. Er sah abgemagert und hinfällig aus.
Bereits vor der Wahl zur Obersten Volksversammlung hatte es Geheimdienstberichte gegeben, nach
denen sein erst 27 Jahre alter Sohn Kim Jong-un mit der Wahl als „Volksvertreter“ seine politische
Karriere beginnen sollte. Auf der Liste der gewählten Kandidaten fehlte aber dann sein Name. Jetzt
wollen südkoreanische Beobachter ihn als Kandidaten eines ländlichen Wahlkreises ausgemacht
haben.
Es ist aber ungewöhnlich, dass in Kim Jong-un ein Nachfolger für das höchste Amt in Nordkorea
erwählt würde, der im Ausland erzogen wurde. Nach verschiedenen Berichten ist Kim Jong-un
mehrere Jahre auf die internationale Schule in Bern gegangen. Er habe dort einen anderen Namen
benutzt. Kim Jong-un ist sehr jung für ein hohes Amt. In Nordkorea, wo Wert auf Seniorität und
Erfahrung gelegt wird, dürfte ein solcher Kandidat der Parteiführung schwer zu vermitteln sein.
Noch keine offiziellen Stellungnahmen
Nachrichten über die Machtverhältnisse und innere Lage in Nordkorea stützen sich mangels
Nachrichten aus Nordkorea oft auf südkoreanische Geheimdienstberichte und Berichte von
Überläufern. Diese haben sich aber auch schon oft als unzuverlässig erwiesen. So erscheint die Art
des Vorgehens, die Nachfolge zuerst nur der Parteiführung und den Auslandsvertretungen bekannt zu
geben neu.
Nordkorea-Beobachter in Südkorea weisen darauf hin, dass die Ernennung des derzeitigen
Machthabers Kim Jong-il zum Nachfolger seines Vaters viele Jahre vor dem Vollzug bekannt gegeben
worden sei. Es sei ungewöhnlich, dass der Führer jetzt seine Pläne für eine dynastische Erbfolge vor
dem Volk geheimhalte. Eigentlich müsse das Regime Wert darauf legen, seine eigenen Medien die
große Neuigkeit schnell verbreiten zu lassen, sagt Brian Myers von der südkoreanischen DongseoUniversität. Bislang gibt es aber noch keine offiziellen Stellungnahmen.
http://www.latimes.com
North Korea's reclusive Kim Jong Il may be planning China trip
News reports note signs that a visit may be in the works. Some analysts say such a move could herald
Pyongyang's return to stalled nuclear disarmament talks.
By John M. Glionna, January 7, 2010
He rarely leaves his secure confines in Pyongyang, but Asian news reports cite signs that reclusive
North Korean strongman Kim Jong Il is preparing for a trip to Beijing.
Kim, who is believed to have traveled to China four times since 2000, two of them in the month of
January, could be ready to announce his nation's return to the six-party nuclear disarmament talks,
some analysts say. North Korea's desperate economy, weakened by international sanctions after
Pyongyang's nuclear and missile tests last year, could force Kim back to the bargaining table in the
hopes of extracting food and financial aid.
Kim's previous trips abroad have signaled new business ventures or a renewed push for nuclear talks.
American officials say they would welcome such a trip if it resulted in renewed rounds of the stalled
nuclear negotiations that have brought North Korea together with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea
and the U.S.
"We have always welcomed interaction with North Korea by our partners in the six-party process, and
we welcome that interaction if Kim Jong Il travels to Beijing," a senior State Department official, who
requested anonymity, told South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
"China has had multiple trips to Pyongyang to make clear to Kim Jong Il what needs to be done now. If
Kim Jong Il comes to Beijing and tells Chinese leaders that he is ready to return to the six-party
process and move forward, we will welcome that news."
North Korean officials have tightened security around a rail border crossing into China, news reports
said. Pyongyang has also closed a customs house in the northwest part of the country near the
Chinese border city of Dandong, Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun business daily reported.
Kim's sojourns outside North Korea are usually shrouded in secrecy. During his last trip to China in
2006, his heavily guarded armored train returned home before his trip was announced by state media
in Pyongyang, the capital.
Chinese officials have not commented on the prospect of another Kim visit. But Chinese media have
quoted speculation by South Korean sources that visits to North Korea by high-ranking Chinese
officials suggest North Korea may be preparing for a return trip. Those officials' visits followed Chinese
Premier Wen Jiabao's trip to Pyongyang in October.
The trip to China also suggests that Kim's health has improved; he suffered what many believe was a
stroke in 2008.
"It is certain that his health has gotten better since the second half of the last year," said Kim Yonghyun, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul.
The State Department official told Yonhap that all eyes will be on Kim Jong Il if he makes the trip.
"Our primary focus is, what will Kim Jong Il say, what will he do?" the official said.
Asked about Kim's possible Chinese trip, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told Yonhap,
"You know, whatever the Dear Leader decides to do, it's up to him."
http://www.globalpost.com
Kim Jong Il, you're under arrest
By Jiyeon Lee - GlobalPost, December 14, 2009
SEOUL, South Korea — Setting fire to life-size cutouts of North Korea’s reclusive leader Kim Jong Il in
the streets of Seoul is one of the more creative ways activists have protested against the hermit
kingdom’s unpopular human rights record.
But challenging a leader who has managed to completely isolate his country from the rest of the world
is no easy task. After years of picketing and publishing booklets, groups in South Korea have set their
sights higher: taking Kim Jong Il to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
More than 100 civic groups in South Korea recently launched a movement called the Anti-human
Crime Investigation Committee and have declared their intention to take North Korea’s leader to the
international court, which can prosecute individuals for their involvement in war crimes, genocide and
crimes against humanity.
“We’ve been fighting for human rights in North Korea for over 10 years now. What we’ve learned in
that process is that North Korea tends to react only when the international community takes notice,”
Do Hee-youn, the head of the umbrella committee, said.
The court, since it began operating in 2002, has taken A former rebel leader of the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, Thomas Lubanga, into custody for forcibly conscripting child soldiers, and
unsealed an arrest warrant for Sudan’s president Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes
against humanity in Darfur. It has two additional ongoing investigations in Uganda and the Central
African Republic.
Do and his partners have gathered 212,200 signatures from the public since launching the movement
in July and has also held a meeting with officials from the ICC at The Hague.
The committee says Kim should be held responsible for crimes against humanity that include the
operation of political prison camps, conducting public executions and killing newborn babies with
deformities — among a long list of other atrocities.
But is the battle against the Stalinist state’s leader at all realistic? Most have shrugged off the idea as
another effort that will go up in smoke, but the activists say they want to place their bets on the
impossible.
“Of course, in all campaigns we have our highest goals and our lower goals,” Do said. “The highest
goal is to have Kim Jong Il stand in court for the crimes he has committed,” he said, “but we’re going to
take things slowly.”
The ICC can only prosecute someone who is a citizen of, or has committed a crime in, a member
state. — which North Korea is not. A state can voluntarily accept the court's jurisdiction, but as long as
the Kim dynasty rules, the chances are almost nonexistent.
An exception is if the U.N. Security Council unanimously orders an investigation, as with President
Bashir of Sudan. But with North Korea's ally China holding a Security Council veto, the odds of that
happening to Kim Jong Il are slim. And even Bashir will not be arrested unless he leaves the country
or the Sudanese government gives him up.
“It’s most likely a symbolic movement,” Park Ki-gab, a law professor at Korea University, said. Given
the issue of jurisdiction with North Korea, Park believes the Security Council is still the committee’s
best bet.
The U.N. General Assembly adopted in November a human rights resolution sponsored by the U.S.
voicing concern about detention and torture among other human rights abuses in North Korea. But for
an ICC investigation, the issue would need unanimous approval from the Security Council.
“With China there, do you think it’s going to be at all possible?” Park said. The stalled nuclear talks
with Pyongyang is also not a favorable condition for the activists. Addressing human rights issues
could potentially cause the North to cut itself off from the international community instead of engaging
in dialogue for denuclearization. “It’s a different world when you’re talking legal issues and politics,” the
professor said.
Do is more optimistic. In the recent meeting with officials from the ICC, he said, the group was told as
long as there is concrete evidence of abuses that the court’s prosecutors will review their case.
The activist said his committee has more than 100 witnesses ready to talk to prosecutors if necessary.
“If the court starts to at least look into the issue, Kim Jong Il will start realizing that he can face
consequences,” Do said. “There are also people within North Korea that are against the leadership.
We’re trying to send them a message.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk
North Korea celebrates Kim Jong-il's birthday
Lavish displays of synchronised swimming and extravagant rallies mark one of secretive nation's
biggest public holidays
Helen Pidd, 16 February 2009
North Korea today celebrated the birthday of its leader, Kim Jong-il, with lavish displays of
synchronised swimming, extravagant rallies and the customary paeans in the state-owned media.
However, there were no reports that the 67-year-old had appeared in public, fuelling speculation that
he has not fully recovered from a stroke he apparently suffered last summer.
His birthday celebrations came amid fears abroad that Pyongyang plans to stage a missile test.
There are growing concerns that the country is preparing to test a long-range missile, following
surveillance reports of long objects being moved towards the coast and of Chinese ships vacating the
area.
The official Korean Central news agency (KCNA) reported earlier today that Pyongyang would press
ahead with a launch, saying it was part of a space programme.
On the inter-Korean border, defectors and activists in South Korea flew tens of thousands of anti-Kim
leaflets to the North by balloon, ignoring a warning from their government that the campaign could
provoke Pyongyang.
Activists put North Korean cash into some of the vinyl leaflets in an effort to entice North Koreans to
read their calls for an uprising against Kim.
Suzanne Scholte, the chairwoman of the North Korea Freedom Coalition, based in the US, said the
leaflet campaign was a way of providing North Koreans with "true information about their
circumstances".
"It is more important than ever that North Koreans realise that the greatest threat to their well-being
and security is their own dear leader," she said during the leafleting campaign at the border town of
Imjingak.
Inside the North, the KCNA reported a surge of congratulatory messages and gifts flooding in from
overseas for Kim.
Streets and villages in North Korea had been festooned with flowers and other decorations to mark the
anniversary, and the country was overflowing with "warm wishes" for the leader, the agency said.
"Comrade Kim Jong-il is a great politician, a heaven-made commander and an affectionate father who
safeguards and illuminates the fate of our nation and people," the country's main Rodong Sinmun
newspaper said in a lengthy editorial.
"We have to sincerely uphold the dear general's military-first leadership."
Kim's birthday is one of the North's biggest national holidays, along with that of his late father and
national founder Kim Il-sung, who died in 1994.
His apparent stroke last year has raised concerns about possible instability in the totalitarian nation in
case he is incapacitated, because he has not named any of his three sons as a successor.
http://www.taz.de
06.09.2008
Im Rausch der Masse
Zu Ehren der Gründung Nordkoreas vor sechzig Jahren lässt Kim Jong Il die Menschen in der ArirangSchau nach seinem Gusto tanzen
AUS PEKING JUTTA LIETSCH
Vor sechzig Jahren rief der "Große Führer" Kim Il Sung die Demokratische Volksrepublik Korea aus
und besiegelte damit die Teilung der koreanischen Halbinsel. Im Leben der Koreaner sind sechzigste
Geburtstage traditionell sehr wichtig.
Kein Wunder also, dass der Sohn des Staatsgründers, der "Liebe Führer" Kim Jong Il, besonders
beeindruckende Zeremonien zum Jahrestag am 9. September geplant hat. Seit dem 4. August zeigen
bis zu hunderttausend Darsteller im 1.-Mai-Stadion von Pjöngjang ihre Kunst in der neuesten Version
der abendlichen Massengymnastikvorstellung, nach einem alten koreanischen Volkslied "Arirang"
benannt.
Damit nicht genug: Unter dem Titel "Es gedeihe das Vaterland" sollen nachmittags 50.000 Darsteller
in einer leicht abgespeckten, zweiten Gymnastikschau auftreten. Reisebüros locken mit "präzisen
Massenchoreografien", die von der revolutionären Vergangenheit und vom "großartigen
Entwicklungsstand der Gegenwart" erzählen.
Kein anderes Land kann Menschenmassen so akkurat in Szene setzen wie Nordkorea. Das bestätigte
kürzlich Chinas berühmter Filmregisseur Zhang Yimou, der die Eröffnungs- und Abschlussfeiern der
Olympischen Spiele in Peking inszenierte: "Diese Art der Uniformität bringt Schönheit hervor … Die
Darsteller folgen den Anweisungen, und sie können es wie Computer."
Jede Individualität, jede Unebenheit und jede Abweichung soll verschwinden. Dafür trainieren die
Teilnehmer über Jahre hinweg. Im Sommer 2002 ließen Kim und seine Generäle das Spektakel in
Konkurrenz zur Fußballweltmeisterschaft in Südkorea und Japan organisieren - und wunderten sich,
warum trotzdem kaum Gäste aus dem Ausland zur Schau nach Nordkorea kamen.
Seither sollen die Arirang-Künstler schon fast zweihundertmal vorgeturnt haben. Das Leben tausender
Kinder, Soldaten und Künstler ist auf die Vorstellung ausgerichtet. Im Film "State of Mind" begleitet der
britische Dokumentarfilmer Daniel Gordon zwei Schülerinnen bei ihren Vorbereitungen und gibt
Einblick in den Arirang-Alltag. Als "Rausch" beschreibt eine andere frühere Teilnehmerin, die auf der
Tribüne Farbtafeln umschlug, den Moment perfekter Harmonie, wenn alle in einem großen Ganzen
verschwinden.
Kim Jong Il, der sich gern als größter Regisseur Nordkoreas feiern lässt, verfasste selbst Traktate
über den politischen und psychologischen Nutzen der Massengymnastik. Seine zynischen Absichten
liest man dabei höchstens zwischen den Zeilen: Eine Bevölkerung, die ständig für die nächste große
Zeremonie trainiert, ist zu erschöpft, um sich gegen das Regime zu wehren.
Trotz Arirang gewann Nordkoreas Team bei den Olympischen Spielen in China nur eine einzige
Medaille im Turnen - beim Pferdsprung der Frauen. Die nordkoreanischen Medien, derzeit begeistert
von den Vorbereitungen zum sechzigsten Jahrestag, meldeten nur kurz die Erfolge in Peking. Arirang
ist wichtiger als Olympia.
http://www.taz.de
17.07.2009
DER FILM DES JAHRHUNDERTS: KIM JONG ILS LEBEN WIRD VERFILMT
Darauf hat die Welt gewartet. Das wird der Film des Jahrhunderts: Wie die staatliche nordkoreanische
Nachrichtenagentur KCNA am späten Mittwochabend berichtete, soll Kim Jong Ils Leben verfilmt
werden. Der Arbeitstitel des großen Werks lautet: "Ich werde Korea Ruhm bringen". Und die Wahrheit
kennt bereits das Drehbuch: So hat Kim Jong Il bereits unter dem lateinischen Namen Kimjongilius an
der Varus-Schlacht teilgenommen und mit seinem mutigen Auftreten entscheidend zur Niederlage der
römischen Truppen beigetragen. Wenig später beteiligte sich Kim Jong Il unter dem Decknamen Jong
Il Kim an der Erstürmung der Pariser Bastille und löste so die Französische Revolution aus. Auf dem
berühmten Delacroix-Gemälde ist er gleich neben der halbentblößten Fahnenträgerin zu sehen. Dass
Kim Jong Il als Kim Armstrong der erste Mann auf dem Mond war, verwundert da zumindest in
Nordkorea niemanden mehr. Denn jedes nordkoreanische Kind kennt schließlich seine berühmten
Worte: "Ein kleiner Schritt für einen Kim, aber ein großer Schritt für Korea." Ein Meisterwerk der
Filmkunst.
http://www.cicero.de/97.php?ress_id=1&item=717
Kim ist schlimmer als Saddam
von Madeleine Albright, Feb 2006
Nordkoreas Diktator Kim Jong Il weiß, dass sein Regime am Ende ist. Das macht ihn gefährlich. Er
muss deshalb so entschieden bekämpft werden wie Saddam vor einem Jahr.
Kim Jong Il ist böse. Er wurde aufgezogen und trainiert in einem total abgeschotteten, marxistischen
System. Und er glaubt seiner eigenen Propaganda. Er lebt in einer völlig irrealen Welt, wo er – wie
sein Vater zuvor – mit Denkmälern glorifiziert wird. Jeder Nordkoreaner trägt ein Revers-Abzeichen
mit seinem Abbild – das ist ein Mega-Personenkult.
Als ich mit ihm verhandelte, entdeckte ich hinter seiner Prahlerei den leisen Selbstzweifel, ob er eine
gestörte Volkswirtschaft führe. Obwohl er öffentlich die Trockenheit für die Hungersnot verantwortlich
macht, weiß er sehr genau, dass das System einfach nicht funktioniert. Er erzählte mir, dass er nach
anderen wirtschaftlichen Modellen Ausschau halte, insbesondere das schwedische fasziniere ihn –
offensichtlich eine absurde Vorstellung.
Kim weiß, dass er einem System vorsitzt, das letztlich zum Scheitern verurteilt ist. Er ist isoliert, aber
nicht uninformiert. Er schaut sich im Fernsehen CNN an. Er hat Computer und nutzt das Internet.
Während er also in seiner kleinen, hermetisch abgeschlossenen Welt lebt, ahnt er schon, was
draußen in der Welt vorgeht, auch wenn er die Information in seiner eigenen verqueren Art gerne
verdreht.
Leider fehlt ihm bislang jeder Reformansatz. Sein Regime ist mörderisch und unmenschlich geblieben.
Aber es gibt für uns keinen Grund, nicht mit ihm zu reden. Wir haben schließlich auch mit Stalin und
Mao geredet. Allerdings ist es schwer, Kim Jong II auszutarieren. Er ist ziemlich grob und ein harter
Verhandler. Das Spiel mit dem Feuer ist eine nordkoreanische Spezialität. Sein Ziel ist internationale
Anerkennung und der Respekt der Vereinigten Staaten. Er versucht, zwischen die USA und Südkorea
einen Keil zu treiben, und behält mit seinem Atomwaffenprogramm immer ein Druckmittel in der
Hinterhand.
Nordkorea hat bereits einfache Nuklearwaffen. Und es verfügt über Mittelstreckenraketen. Außerdem
kann es über die Nuklearanlage in Yongbyan binnen weniger Jahre Dutzende von Atomwaffen
herstellen. Und: Die Nordkoreaner haben eine feindliche Grundhaltung jedem Fremden gegenüber.
Es sind die regionalen Besonderheiten, die die Situation so gefährlich machen. In den vergangenen
40 Jahren haben wir versucht, einen Rüstungswettlauf in Asien zu verhindern. Das ist auch der Grund,
warum die USA eigene Truppen in Südkorea stationiert halten und für Japan einen militärischen
Schutzschirm stellen, so dass sich das Land nicht wiederbewaffnet. Obwohl wir anerkennen müssen,
dass China als Regional- und Weltmacht immer wichtiger wird, wollen wir doch nicht, dass es zum
Polizisten Asiens heranwächst.
Ein unkontrolliertes Nordkorea wird beides auslösen: einen Rüstungswettlauf, weil ein nuklear
bewaffnetes und vielleicht irgendwann wiedervereinigtes Korea auch Japan in die Nuklearrüstung
treiben wird; und zum zweiten eine militarisierte Machtrolle Chinas als Sicherheitsgarant für die
Region. Kurzum: Das Kräftegleichgewicht Ostasiens würde kippen, ein Kräftegleichgewicht, in dem
die USA bislang die Schlüsselrolle spielten und das Stabilität und Wohlstand gewährleistet hat.
Also: Es steht viel auf dem Spiel. Wir wissen, dass Nordkorea einen gewissenlosen Diktator hat, dass
es über nukleare Optionen verfügt und über eine Armee mit einer Million Soldaten. Das ist deutlich
gefährlicher als was wir im Irak vorgefunden haben. Ich stimme allen Argumenten von George Bush
zu, die für eine Beseitigung von Saddam gesprochen haben. Aber in Anbetracht dieser anderen
Bedrohung in Ostasien hat der Krieg im Irak für mich keinen Sinn gemacht.
Saddam war doch bereits „eingedämmt“, er saß in einer Kiste. Meine Sorge ist, dass die Explosion
dieser Kiste nun die größte Ölregion der Welt in Brand setzt. Ich glaube Präsident Bush, dass Al
Qaida und Osama bin Laden nicht die ersten Gegner waren, die es zu beseitigen galt. Doch der IrakKrieg hat alle Prioritäten durcheinander gebracht. Der Irak steht seither ganz oben auf der
Tagesordnung und die viel dringenderen Fragen – wie etwa Nordkorea – am Ende.
Ich bin außerdem überrascht, dass die militärische Option gegen Nordkorea – obwohl eine gewaltige
Vorstellung – vom Tisch genommen wurde. Ich glaube zwar nicht, dass die Korea-Krise am Ende
militärisch gelöst werden kann. Aber wenn ich eines als Außenministerin gelernt habe, dann dies:
Nimm nie eine Option vom Tisch. Schon gar nicht gegen einen Mann wie Kim Jong Il.
http://news.yahoo.com
U.N. seeks to put Kim Jong Il on diet
By WILLIAM FOREMAN, Oct 14, 2006
SEOUL, South Korea – He's known for swigging cognac and owning thousands of bottles of vintage
French wine. His private train is reportedly stocked with live lobsters served with silver chopsticks. He
allegedly flew in an Italian chef to make him pizzas.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il loves his fancy food. But will he have to start eating more kimchi and
less caviar now that a U.N. resolution passed Saturday has banned the sale of luxury goods to North
Korea?
„I think the North Korean population has been losing average height and weight over the years and
maybe this will be a little diet for Kim Jong Il,“ John Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations,
said Friday as the resolution was under debate.
About 2 million people are believed to have starved to death in North Korea in the 1990s amid bad
harvests and decades of economic bungling. As Kim tucked into gourmet meals, his people survived
by eating tree bark, weeds and roots.
Some experts, though, doubt the U.N. measure – designed to punish the North for allegedly testing a
nuclear device – will force Kim to go on a diet. They say the North's shadowy network of trading
companies around the world will find ways to skirt the ban and deliver sushi and shark fin to Kim,
whose paunch stands out as much as his frizzy bouffant hairdo.
„The North changes the names of the companies all the time. It's almost impossible to keep track of
them,“ said Bertil Lintner, author of „Great Leader, Dear Leader: Demystifying North Korea Under the
Kim Clan.“
Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya questioned how the ban would be defined, saying on Friday: „I
don't know what luxury goods means, because luxury goods can mean many things for different
people ... if they don't have it.“
Kim's foodie ways are legendary but largely unconfirmed. Most of the tales come from defectors,
foreign officials, journalists and chefs who got a rare peek inside the reclusive leader's bizarre world.
One of the most interesting accounts of Kim's lavish lifestyle came from Konstantin Pulikovsky, a
former Russian presidential envoy who wrote a book, „The Orient Express,“ about Kim's train trip
through Russia in July and August 2001.
Pulikovsky, who accompanied the North Korean leader, said Kim's 16-car private train was stocked
with crates of French wine. Live lobsters were delivered in advance to stations, and gourmet feasts
were eaten with silver chopsticks, he said.
While stopping in the Siberian city of Omsk, Kim sent back a plate of pickles because they were
„shoddily marinated cucumbers from Bulgaria, not prepared in the authentic Russian style,“ Pulikovsky
wrote.
Bradley K. Martin's book „Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader“ included an account by Kenji
Fujimoto, who claimed to be Kim's personal sushi chef. The Japanese man said Kim had a 10,000bottle wine cellar and ate shark's fin soup weekly, the book reported.
„His banquets often started at midnight and lasted until morning. The longest lasted for four days,“ the
chef was quoted as saying.
Fujimoto, who claimed to work for Kim for more than a decade, also has said that he was sent abroad
on shopping missions to buy Czech beer, Thai papayas, caviar from Iran, Chinese melons, fish from
Japan and Danish pork.
Michael Breen, author of the biography „Kim Jong-Il: North Korea's Dear Leader,“ also was skeptical
that the U.N. ban on luxury goods would be effective because the trade in the goods would be difficult
to track.
He said the measure is designed to hit the nation's leadership, who some believe have been
unaffected by the country's famine conditions.
„The super elite is impervious to what's happening,“ he said.
Breen said his favorite accounts about Kim's lifestyle include the Italian chefs who were recruited to
make pizzas and train North Korean cooks in one of Kim's palaces. Kim also reportedly eats specially
grown rice grains that are hand sorted by women, he said.
„One defector said he was sent to Europe on a toy-buying mission,“ Breen said. „Apparently, Kim's
kids had a room full of all the latest toys from Toys R Us.“
The author added that the North Korean leader's tastes aren't that unusual.
„If he lived in Hong Kong, he'd be normal,“ Breen said. „But the fact that he's a leader in a country in
famine, that's what makes it disgusting.“
http://news.ft.com
Great Leader gives way to the surprising survivor
By Andrew Ward, July 9 2004
When Kim Il-sung, North Korea's founding president, died of a heart attack 10 years ago yesterday,
few observers expected the isolated communist state to survive long without its Great Leader.
A decade later, the world's most totalitarian regime is still in place, suppressing its 23m impoverished
people and threatening the world with self-declared weapons of mass destruction.
As Kim Jong-il, who replaced his father in a rare example of hereditary succession in the communist
world, marks his 10th anniversary in power, experts are no longer so quick to predict North Korea's
demise.
„Nobody thought Kim Jong-il would last more than five years,“ says Moon Chung-in, professor at
Seoul's Yonsei university. „His regime has great durability. North Korea is not as fragile as many
think.“
However, the anniversary comes as Mr Kim faces strategic challenges. He must choose whether to
build more of the nuclear weapons that bring his country power, or trade them for a better relationship
with the international community. He must also decide how far to pursue economic reform, aware that
liberalisation could threaten his regime.
Michael Breen, author of a book about Mr Kim, says: „He needs to reduce the country's isolation but
opening up would allow poison to seep in and infect the system. When North Koreans start to see
more of the outside world, they will say, 'I want that'. „
Like his father, Mr Kim has maintained control through the suppression of dissent and a powerful
personality cult. North Koreans are taught that, when he was born, supposedly in a log cabin on the
slopes of the country's most sacred mountain, a bright star and double rainbow appeared in the sky.
Anyone heard denigrating him risks joining the thousands of political prisoners in labour camps. Spies
operate everywhere, making dissent impossible.
Before he came to power, Mr Kim was described by foreign intelligence asa feckless playboy
obsessed by drinking, womanising and watching films – a reputation enhanced by his kidnap in 1978
of a South Korean actress and her director husband to make films for him.
But North Korea's survival has forced the world to reappraise the reclusive 62-year-old. While reports
persist of his hedonism – he had his train stocked with lobster and French wine when he visited
Moscow three years ago – it is clear Mr Kim is neither a fool nor a slouch. High-level defectors
describe a hard-working man who sleeps four hours a night, surfs the internet, watches CNN and
micro-manages the country with a round-the-clock barrage of hand-written memos.
Critics contrast Mr Kim's lifestyle with the austerity suffered by ordinary people. While Mr Kim's former
chef claims he was often sent overseas to buy caviar and other delicacies, millions of North Koreans
survive on hand-outs from the United Nations. Aid workers report starving people eating grass and
tree bark.
Hawkish officials in Washington seek to put pressure on North Korea's economy, hoping to force the
regime's collapse. Yet Mr Breen says this is counterproductive. „The existence of an outside threat
helps justify the internal controls. So the people who most abhor Kim have helped him stay in power.“
Mr Kim's sympathisers point to economic reforms over the past two years as evidence of change.
Wages and prices have been liberalised and some state subsidies removed. „Kim Jong-il is reformminded and pragmatic but he is a victim of the structural weaknesses inherited from his father,“ says
Prof Moon.
A senior South Korean official says Mr Kim is trying to emulate China and Vietnam by reforming the
economy while keeping the political system intact. But others see closer comparisons with eastern
Europe, where communism quickly unravelled once exposed to market forces.
„Few predicted the fall of communism in eastern Europe. The probability is that there will also be an
unexpected event in Pyongyang,“ says Mr Breen. „Communism will eventually fail in North Korea. The
question is whether it happens in one year or 20.“
As Mr Kim grows older, the battle for succession will add further uncertainty. For years, the favourite
was considered Kim Jong-nam, the eldest of his three sons, whose mother was a famous North
Korean actress. But he fell from grace when caught trying to visit Disneyland in Japan with a false
passport. That leaves two sons from Mr Kim's third marriage – to a Japanese-born dancer.
It is not clear which is favoured. There may also be generals with leadership ambitions.
„Kim Jong-il had 30 years' preparation for the job,“ says Lee Dong-bok, a former South Korean
negotiator with the North. „He was the chief operating officer and his father was the chief executive.
But his own succession has been less well-planned.“
http://www.nytimes.com
June 3, 2009
North Korean Leader Is Said to Pick a Son as Heir
By DAVID E. SANGER, MARK MAZZETTI and CHOE SANG-HUN
WASHINGTON — American and South Korean officials say that Kim Jong-il, the North Korean dictator
recovering from a stroke, appears to have designated his youngest son as his successor. Mr. Kim may
have ordered the country’s second nuclear test last week in hopes of leaving his son in control of a
country that has cemented its status as a nuclear-weapons state.
Little is known about the youngest son, Kim Jong-un, beyond reports that he was secretly schooled in
Switzerland under an assumed name, posing as the son of a driver in the nearby North Korean
Embassy. He skied Switzerland’s famous slopes, and was a fan of Michael Jordan.
But his path to power is hardly assured: some intelligence officials believe that everyone from the
North Korean military to Kim Jong-il’s eldest son may be plotting behind the scenes to derail the
succession plans, and North Korea’s last ally, China, is reportedly deeply uncomfortable with the
thought of a third-generation family dynasty, unique among Communist nations.
As always in watching a state virtually sealed off from the outside world, analysts acknowledge that
they are extrapolating from indicators, rather than hard evidence. Even Kim Jong-un’s age is
uncertain; he is believed to be in his mid-20s.
In recent weeks, North Korean diplomats abroad have been told to begin to pay homage to Kim Jongun and some schoolchildren have reportedly been including his name in their songs. His rise comes at
the expense of his 38-year-old brother, Kim Jong-nam, best known for the moment when he was
caught slipping into Japan on a false passport, on his way to Tokyo Disneyland.
In preliminary assessments of the May 25 underground nuclear test, top officials of the Obama
administration say they believe it was linked to the power jockeying in Pyongyang more than any
attempt to force President Obama into more negotiations in which North Korea tries to trade away its
nuclear ability for American energy and security concessions.
“There was a sense that every North Korean escalation was intended as a bargaining chip,” said one
senior administration official involved in the assessments. “Now there’s an alternative view taking hold:
that Kim Jong-il wants to force the world to acknowledge it as a nuclear power before he dies. And
we’re not going to do that.”
Mr. Obama has sent James B. Steinberg, the deputy secretary of state, and other senior officials to
Japan, South Korea and China this week to attempt a unified response to the test, focusing on
inspecting all sea and air traffic moving in and out of North Korea that could be carrying nuclear or
missile technology, according to an administration official.
But it is a risky move, one that could leave Mr. Obama facing a possible military confrontation with the
North as he increases troop levels in Afghanistan.
The most delicate issue is whether China will back the inspection of some North Korean vessels,
which the North has already warned it would consider an act of war. The inspections were authorized,
but not enforced, under a United Nations resolution passed after the North’s first nuclear test, in 2006.
A senior administration official said Tuesday that Chinese officials feared that if North Korea gained
the ability to fit its nuclear weapons atop its long-range missiles, the United States would increase its
military presence in the Pacific and Japan could reconsider its ban on its own nuclear weapons. But if
the Chinese press too hard, the official said, “they risk unintentionally causing collapse in North Korea
and instability” on their own border. The official spoke at a forum on Tuesday under rules that he not
be quoted by name.
While Obama administration officials say they want to draw North Korea back into disarmament talks
begun by President George W. Bush, they are not interested in negotiating yet another deal to disable
the main nuclear facility at Yongbyon, where North Korea produces its bomb-grade plutonium. “The
real challenge is to avoid a repetition of the past,” one senior administration official said.
Obama administration officials acknowledge that negotiations with the North may be all but impossible
at a moment when it is unclear who is running the country and when all players in a succession
struggle will avoid any perception of concessions to the United States.
There is no indication yet that the heir apparent has been involved in decisions about the nuclear
program.
The current leader, Kim Jong-il, has three known sons. The eldest, Kim Jong-nam, was once
considered the leading candidate to succeed his father, until the Disneyland episode added to rumors
that his judgment was less than reliable. Kim Jong-nam is widely reported to have voracious appetites
for alcohol and women, and his father apparently grew concerned that North Korea’s generals would
never accept him, according to a former American intelligence official.
The North Korean leader’s middle son, Kim Jong-chol, 28, was another possibility, but Kenji Fujimoto,
who once served as Kim Jong-il’s sushi chef, wrote in a memoir that Kim Jong-il dismissed that son as
“girlish,” suggesting that he would not stand up to the West.
By default, that left Kim Jong-un. On Tuesday, South Korean lawmakers said they had been briefed by
the country’s intelligence agency, and told he was the heir apparent. The intelligence agency
intercepted messages to North Korean overseas missions a few days after the May 25 nuclear test,
according to reports in Seoul.
“Our intelligence service has been following the matter for some time,” said Song Young-gil, an
opposition lawmaker briefed by the intelligence agency. “They said that this message instructed the
diplomats to pledge their allegiance to Kim Jong-un.”
Another lawmaker, Moon Kook-hyun, said he could not comment on a secret briefing but agreed that
Kim Jong-un had been designated the successor. The intelligence agency declined to confirm the
reports.
Inside the North, the subject is only whispered about. “I never thought that Kim Jong-il was human and
thus mortal,” said Oh Yeon-jong, a defector who arrived in Seoul in 2004. “We didn’t know, didn’t talk
about how many children he had, how many wives he had. I heard about them only when I arrived
here.”
It also is not clear if a society that reveres seniority would accept such a young leader, and American
officials are waiting for the next steps.
One test could be the response of Gen. O Kuk-ryol, the National Defense Commission’s vice
chairman. Intelligence officials say they believe he would need to give his blessing to the transfer of
power in Pyongyang. The general has taken greater control in recent years over the regime’s military
and security policy. Analysts are also watching Jang Seong-taek, Kim Jong-il’s brother-in-law, who is
believed to run many day-to-day state affairs on behalf of the ailing leader.
In any case, the outside world will be transfixed. At the C.I.A., the youngest son’s picture used to be
posted in the Asia division, and analysts gave him the moniker of “the Cute Leader” — a play on his
father’s status as “Dear Leader” and his grandfather’s as “Great Leader.”
http://www.nytimes.com
Kim Jong-il
Aug. 24, 2009
Since North Korea was founded in 1948 under Soviet guardianship, it has had only two leaders: Kim Ilsung, and after his death in 1994, his son, Kim Jong-il, the first and only hereditary leader in the
Communist world.
Under the younger Kim, North Korea has become a nuclear power. It has also become the world's
most isolated state, one in which unknown numbers starved during famines in the 1990s, while money
flowed to the country's military programs.
Although it was not until 1994 that Kim Jong-il became the official ruler of North Korea, he was all but
running the country for years before that.
FROM ERRATIC PLAYBOY TO PUZZLING LEADER
According to the official version of his life story, Mr. Kim was born on Feb. 16, 1942, in a log cabin on
Mount Paektu, the highest mountain on the Korean Peninsula. When he was born, the official version
goes, the sky was brightened by a star and a double rainbow.
The truth is that Kim was born a year earlier in the Soviet Union, at an army base near Khabarovsk, in
the Soviet far east, not far from the short border shared by the two countries. His father was stationed
there as the commander of a Korean battalion in the Soviet Army 88th Brigade, which engaged in
reconnaissance missions against Japanese troops.
Before Kim Il-sung's death, it was common to view the younger Kim as an erratic playboy; tales of his
reclusiveness and tastes for women and wine were abundant. There were doubts he could hold North
Korea together once his father died. While Kim Il-sung was alive, his son avoided the spotlight. North
Koreans did not even hear his voice until a broadcast in 1992, when at a ceremony for the army's 60th
anniversary, he said, ''Glory to the people's heroic military!''
But Mr. Kim has proved to be canny, if puzzling and erratic, making moves toward better relations with
the West and then reverting to the use of shrieking vitriol. As the price for a summit meeting in
Pyongyang with the South Korean leader Kim Dae Jung in 2000, he managed to extort $100 million in
under-the-table cash payments. That same year he met with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
and hinted broadly at a thaw. When the Bush administration concluded that North Korea had been
cheating on a nuclear agreement it signed with President Bill Clinton, Pyongyang reacted fiercely, then
returned to negotiations before setting off its first nuclear explosion in 2006. A deal reached the next
year has seemed perpetually ready to fall apart.
In August 2009, Mr. Kim sent a message of improving ties with South Korea through his high-level
delegation, which met with the South's president, Lee Myung-bak, in the first major political meeting
between the two Koreas in nearly two years. The North Korean delegation flew to Seoul to pay its
respects to former President Kim Dae-jung, who died Aug. 18.
The trip was widely seen as an opportunity for Kim Jong-il to reach out to Seoul. After months of
raising tensions with nuclear and missile tests, North Korea appeared to be shifting its tone.
SUCCESSION
Mr. Kim has three sons. None has emerged as heir apparent.
Questions were raised about the possible succession when United States and South Korean officials
reported that Mr. Kim suffered a stroke in August 2008. The North Koreans denied the reports and
called news of his stroke a Western conspiracy to sabotage the government. But in December a
French doctor who treated Mr. Kim said he had indeed suffered a stroke but did not undergo any
operations and remained in control of the government.
On Jan. 23, the North Korean leader met a senior Chinese Communist party official in Pyongyang,
Chinese and North Korean media reported. It was Mr. Kim’s first public meeting with a foreign visitor
since August.
Analysts in Seoul saw the meeting as an attempt to demonstrate to the outside world that Mr. Kim was
still in control of North Korea, well enough to make key decisions about its nuclear weapons program
and deal with the new American administration.
On April 9, the country's Parliament elected him to another five-year term. But the secretive
government still gave no clues, after the months of questions about Mr. Kim's failing health, as to
which of his three sons would be prepared to succeed him.South Korean media have recently
brimmed with speculative reports, and most of them focused on Kim Jong-un, the youngest and leastknown son of Kim Jong-il, as the most likely successor.
That theory gained a major boost when the National Intelligence Service, South Korea's main
government spy agency, told lawmakers on June 1, that Pyongyang recently began sending a
message to its embassies abroad that Kim Jong-un, still in his mid-20s, was selected as heir.
The National Intelligence Service declined to confirm the reports, and the South Korean officials who
privately say that Kim Jong-un stands the best chance of succeeding his father offer little evidence.
Few reports about the inner workings of the ruling family of North Korea can be independently
confirmed.
FREED U.S. JOURNALISTS
In August 2009, former President Bill Clinton paid a dramatic 20-hour visit to North Korea, in which he
won the freedom of two American journalists, opened a diplomatic channel to North Korea's reclusive
government and dined with Mr. Kim.
The North Korean government, which in June sentenced the Current TV journalists, Laura Ling and
Euna Lee, to 12 years of hard labor for illegally entering North Korean territory, announced that it had
pardoned the women after Mr. Clinton apologized to Mr. Kim for their actions, according to the North
Korean state media.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton denied that Mr. Clinton had apologized.
Mr. Clinton's mission to Pyongyang was the most visible by an American in nearly a decade. It came
at a time when the United States' relationship with North Korea had become especially chilled, after
North Korea's test of its second nuclear device in May and a series of missile launchings.
http://www.nytimes.com
North Korean Leader, Thin and Limping, Returns to Assembly and Gains New Term
By CHOE SANG-HUN
Published: April 9, 2009
SEOUL, South Korea — The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, returned to center stage in the North’s
capital, Pyongyang, on Thursday when the country’s Parliament elected him to another five-year term.
But the secretive government gave no clues, after months of questions about Mr. Kim’s failing health,
as to which of his three sons would be prepared to succeed him.
In a still image taken from video, North Korean leader Kim Jong II arrived to attend the first session of
Supreme People's Assembly on Thursday in Pyongyang.
State television showed Mr. Kim, 67, receiving a standing ovation as he walked, with a slight limp, into
the session of the rubber-stamp Supreme People’s Assembly. In contrast to his former paunchy build,
he looked gaunt and older, but he maintained his authority, returning the applause and motioning the
delegates to be seated. He appeared to have difficulty using his left hand because of, doctors believe,
a stroke he suffered last August.
It was the first major public appearance by Mr. Kim since his reported stroke, and it followed months of
speculation about his grip on power.
The Assembly re-elected him chairman of North Korea’s most powerful ruling agency, the National
Defense Commission. Also elected to the commission were Ju Gyu-chang, a senior defense industry
official said to have led the project to launch a satellite, and Jang Song-taek, Mr. Kim’s brother-in-law.
Although Mr. Jang had held relatively low ranks in the party hierarchy, he has long been considered
the second most powerful man in the country. He is expected to play a crucial role in elevating one of
Mr. Kim’s sons to the helm or even head a collective leadership should Mr. Kim die suddenly.
With news of Mr. Kim’s re-election, North Korean media brimmed with lofty proclamations and patriotic
songs praising him for “successfully” putting a satellite into orbit on board the rocket the North
launched Sunday. The launching went ahead in defiance of the United States and its allies, who said it
was designed to test a missile. Washington said the launching was a failure and that the satellite had
not reached orbit.
Analysts say that the launching of the purported satellite, Kwangmyongsong-2, or Lodestar-2, a
reference to Mr. Kim’s nickname in North Korea, was meant to meet urgent domestic needs as well as
to win attention from the Obama administration.
The North’s rocket launching and its increasingly confrontational posture toward the United States and
South Korea are widely seen here as a way of quashing rumors about Mr. Kim’s health and to show —
to people at home and to adversaries abroad — that he is firmly in charge.
“What we see happening in the North is not an expression of confidence, rather it shows serious
internal strain and uncertainty,” said Nam Joo-hong, a North Korea specialist at Kyonggi University in
South Korea.
Mr. Kim is widely seen as having delayed anointing an heir because the two sons he most trusted
were too young to lead a society that values maturity. “He must now hurry up,” said Cheong Seongchang, a North Korea expert at the Sejong Institute in Seoul.
Recent reshuffles at the organizational and propaganda departments of the ruling Workers’ Party of
Korea — the two party bodies Mr. Kim controlled while being groomed as successor in the 1970s and
’80s — signaled that a power transfer might have begun, Mr. Cheong said.
But any power shift will be gradual. For now, North Korea has redoubled its efforts to show that Mr.
Kim remains at the helm, even if that means releasing photos and video that show North Koreans
there is something wrong with their leader.
In a recent picture of him inspecting a swimming pool, Mr. Kim was clearly thinner and his facial skin
seemed to be sagging — a far cry from the heroic images of him that decorate murals in every North
Korean village.
On Tuesday, North Korea released the first video of Mr. Kim since his stroke. Shown visiting a pig
farm in early August, Mr. Kim was gesticulating to workers with both hands.
Without explanation, the video jumped to late November and December, when he was shown in a
parka and gloves. He kept his left hand in a pocket most of the time.
http://www.nytimes.com
October 19, 2003
The Last Emperor
By PETER MAASS
The Dear Leader is a workaholic. Kim Jong Il sleeps four hours a night, or if he works through the
night, as he sometimes does, he sleeps four hours a day. His office is a hive of activity; reports cross
his desk at all hours. Dressed as always in his signature khaki jumpsuit, he reads them all, issuing
instructions to aides, dashing off handwritten notes or picking up the phone at 3 a.m. and telling
subordinates what should lead the news broadcasts or whom to dispatch to a prison camp. His
micromanaging style is less Caligula, with whom he has often been compared, and more Jimmy
Carter on an authoritarian tear.
The Dear Leader, as the North Korean media refer to him, wishes to be viewed as a modern leader.
He has boasted to visitors that he has three computers in his office, though it's not known if he
operates them himself or has aides who do so. His eldest son is reputed to be a computer whiz and,
like sons the world over, is credited with bringing his father into the digital age. When Madeleine K.
Albright, then the secretary of state, visited North Korea in 2000, Kim asked her, as he said farewell, to
give him the State Department's e-mail address.
Because of weakening eyesight, the Dear Leader rarely reads newspapers; for keeping abreast of
world affairs, he relies on television. It is a safe bet that he is well aware of the uproar caused by his
government's confirmation, earlier this month, that it has begun making nuclear bombs from
reprocessed plutonium. In a meeting a few years ago with a group of South Korean media executives,
Kim explained that he began watching South Korean television in 1979. A media junkie, he also
watches NHK from Japan, as well as CCTV from China and CNN. Having led his nation into chronic
poverty and famine, what does he make of the enormous wealth he sees in the broadcasts and
commercials?
Ordinary North Koreans would be sent to the gulag for watching Western TV, but the Dear Leader may
do as he pleases, as all dictators may do as they please, and it pleases him to watch television. He
especially enjoys watching tapes of the latest movies from Hollywood, some of which are believed to
be sent to Pyongyang in diplomatic pouches from North Korean missions in New York and Beijing.
Kim is not known to speak Japanese or Chinese, so interpreters presumably assist him with foreignlanguage broadcasts; on any given evening, his interpreter might be his favorite mistress, Ko Young
Hee, who was born in Japan and is assumed to speak Japanese. When Kim watches Russian
television, as he says he does, he may not need an interpreter, because he spent his early years in
the Soviet Union; when Russians visit, he sings them Soviet military songs. As for English, he knows
at least a few words. A Japanese man who worked as Kim's personal chef wrote in a recent memoir
that the Dear Leader always asked for extra helpings of toro, his favorite cut of sushi, by saying ''one
more'' in English.
The Dear Leader has always been a master of details. Although it was not until 1994, upon the death
of his father, Kim Il Sung, that Kim Jong Il became the official ruler of North Korea, he was all but
running the country for years before that. Appointments to any senior post were made by him, whether
in the Korean Workers Party (which controls all government institutions) or the Korean People's Army.
Decisions on all manner of issues -- from the gifts of food and electronic goods that party officials and
commoners received on national holidays to the direction and scope of the country's clandestine
nuclear-weapons programs -- were made by ''the party center,'' as Kim was called, in whispers, in the
years before his father's death. The choicest reward that he doled out was a Mercedes-Benz with a
license plate that begins ''2-16,'' in reference to his birthday, Feb. 16.
The Dear Leader's political skills, underestimated by foreign observers until recently, are beginning to
register now that he has begun meeting foreigners on a regular basis and now that his regime, along
with Iran, is one of two surviving members of the ''axis of evil'' proclaimed by President Bush. Albright's
delegation spent more than 12 hours with Kim over two days in October 2000, half of that time in
negotiations and the other half at dinners and ceremonial functions. During one negotiating session,
Kim was presented with a list of 14 technical questions related to his missile program; the Americans
expected him to pass the list to advisers who would respond later. Instead, Kim went down the list,
one question after another, and answered most of them himself.
Indeed, the Dear Leader, who turned 62 this year, knows quite a bit about the world around him. And
after decades of being nearly clueless, the world around him is gradually getting to know the Dear
Leader, too.
he Bush administration is trying to figure out how to end Kim's regime, or at least to neutralize it. This
is proving to be an extraordinarily difficult task, since the regime is far more resilient than anyone
expected and far more dangerous.
North Korea has possessed short-range missiles for years, but was never known to have long-range
missile capability. Then in 1998 North Korea stunned the intelligence community by launching a threestage rocket bearing a satellite. The C.I.A. says that it believes these Taepodong-1 rockets could be
used as missiles to reach the United States. The rocket veered off course after launch, so the North
Koreans obviously have some kinks to work out. Even so, Washington is worried, not only about North
Korea being able to launch an intercontinental attack but also about the North Koreans selling their
missile technology to other regimes. North Korea is believed to have provided missiles to Pakistan in
exchange for nuclear technology. And according to a recently released report by David Kay, the C.I.A.
adviser on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, North Korea agreed in 1999 to a missile deal with
Baghdad that was aborted late last year.
No one is sure of North Korea's own nuclear intentions. In 1994, facing the threat of a pre-emptive
attack by the United States, North Korea agreed to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for a
package of foreign aid and energy supplies. At the time, the C.I.A. publicly estimated that North Korea
might already possess an atom bomb. The 1994 agreement fell apart in 2002 after North Korea kicked
out U.N. nuclear inspectors who were keeping watch over 8,000 plutonium rods that could be
reprocessed into weapons-grade material.
During the past year, North Korea strongly hinted that the rods were being reprocessed, and on Oct. 2
the regime announced, more directly than before, that the reprocessing was under way and that its
''nuclear deterrent force'' was being expanded. Experts say that if all 8,000 rods are reprocessed,
North Korea could make perhaps 20 nuclear bombs, but it's not certain whether bombs have yet been
made; bluffing is an integral element of Kim's nuclear poker game.
Along with South Korea, Japan, China and Russia, the United States began the first round of so-called
six-party talks in Beijing with North Korea in late August, and a second round may be held in
November. Whether those talks take place, and what happens if they do, depends greatly on whether
the Bush administration decides to offer incentives for Kim to disarm or whether it decides to isolate
him further. The underlying issues are quite stark: Can Kim be reformed? Can he be deposed? At the
heart of the matter is this: Who is Kim Jong Il?
Dictators come in different strains, like poisons. Some are catastrophically toxic; others, less so. Quite
often, the harm a dictator will cause is associated with an internal drive to violence or a paranoia that
begets violence or a mixture of both. Saddam Hussein is a case in point; his personal viciousness is
legendary. Dictators of this sort are easy to read and easy to despise because they are obvious killers.
But what is to be made of a dictator who is charming, as Kim can be, and has never been known
personally to raise a weapon or even a hand against anyone? This can be a no-less-dangerous strain
of dictator, and in the world today, Kim Jong Il is its most striking example. Though friendly with
important visitors, Kim is vicious to his own people. An estimated two million of them died during a
preventable famine in the 1990's, and several hundred thousand are in prison and labor camps; many
have been executed.
While I was a reporter in South Korea, from 1987 to 1990, it was common to view Kim as an erratic
playboy; tales of his reclusiveness and tastes for women and wine were abundant. He was, it seemed,
a nut job, incapable of holding North Korea together once his father died. While Kim Il Sung was alive,
Kim Jong Il avoided the spotlight. North Koreans did not even hear his voice until a broadcast in 1992,
when at a ceremony for the army's 60th anniversary, he said, ''Glory to the people's heroic military!''
Six words. It would be many years before he was heard from again.
Kim Jong Il has never granted an interview to a Western reporter, and visits to North Korea by
Western journalists are exceedingly rare. (I visited Pyongyang in 1989 but was refused a visa this time
around.) However, since 2000 a flood of information has emerged from South Koreans, Russians and
Americans who have met the Dear Leader and from high-level defectors who have escaped his orbit.
What emerges from these sources is a picture of a dictator who is not crazy like Idi Amin or
bloodthirsty like Saddam Hussein. Kim can be courteous, he is very intelligent and he doesn't drink
nearly as much as he is rumored to. Nor is he the playboy that the popular myth makes him out to be.
Instead, his dictatorship mixes high technology with Confucian traditions: a kind of cyberfeudalism. It is
an ideology that has been catastrophic for the people of North Korea.
It was the summer of 2000, and Kim Jong Il was in a sunny mood. He had just held a summit meeting
in Pyongyang with Kim Dae Jung, South Korea's president at the time. The South Koreans, in order to
make the meeting happen, had provided $100 million in under-the-table payments, which meant North
Korea's usually bare treasury was temporarily not so bare. The cash had created a brief thaw in
relations, and on Aug. 5 a delegation of South Korean media executives, including the heads of its
television networks and newspapers, arrived at Pyongyang airport.
On their first night in North Korea's capital, the visitors from Seoul were treated to a feast at a banquet
hall. Wine from Bordeaux was served, along with multiple courses of Korean food, including kalbi-kuk,
a meat stew. The guests ate with copper chopsticks, and their dinner lasted for four hours, presided
over at the head table by the Dear Leader. Seated to his right was Choe Hak Rae, then publisher of
Hankyoreh Shinmun, a newspaper known for its friendly coverage of North Korea.
As Choe recalls, Kim was ebullient, acting more like a Broadway producer with a smash hit on his
hands than a dictator running a repressive and impoverished regime. Kim told jokes and casually
conversed about everything from horses to missiles. When a fawning aide stopped by the head table
and began praising his boss, Kim told him to skip the formalities -- his precise words, in Korean, were
''Cut it out'' -- and pour wine for their brothers from South Korea. He cried out ''Straight!'' when it came
time for a toast, meaning that they should drain their glasses, but he only sipped his own wine. Kim
told his guests that his doctors had suggested he cut down on liquor. Dictators can do many things,
but they cannot keep their livers young forever.
The conversation turned to hobbies. Kim is an avid equestrian and told Choe that his best thoughts
occur on horseback. He prefers Orlovs, a Russian breed, and likes to ride them as fast and as far as
they can go.
The subject of war was raised, delicately. Why, Choe inquired, was North Korea's government
spending its scarce resources on ballistic missiles instead of education or other social programs that
would directly benefit its starving citizens? The Dear Leader did not hesitate to reply. ''The missiles
cannot reach the United States,'' he said, ''and if I launch them, the U.S. would fire back thousands of
missiles and we would not survive. I know that very well. But I have to let them know I have missiles. I
am making them because only then will the United States talk to me.''
The North Korean leader took a liking to Choe and invited him to return with his family, offering to
show them around and ride horses with them. When Choe left Pyongyang a few days later, Kim shook
his hand at a farewell luncheon and said, with great emotion: ''Keep your promise. Come next spring
with your family.''
Choe has not returned -- the North-South thaw has chilled a bit -- but North Korean officials have
passed on to him a stream of entreaties from the Dear Leader. The gist of the messages, according to
Choe, whom I met in Seoul in August, is quite simple: ''Why haven't you come?''
ccording to the official version of his life story, Kim was born on Feb. 16, 1942, in a log cabin on Mount
Paektu, the highest mountain on the Korean Peninsula. When he was born, the official version goes,
the sky was brightened by a star and a double rainbow.
The truth is that Kim was born a year earlier in the Soviet Union, at an army base near Khabarovsk, in
the Soviet far east, not far from the short border shared by the two countries. His father was stationed
there as the commander of a Korean battalion in the Soviet Army 88th Brigade, which engaged in
reconnaissance missions against Japanese troops. Because it would be inconvenient, for reasons of
Korean nationalism, to have Kim born on foreign soil, his place and date of birth have been fabricated
in official biographies.
The biographers also make no mention of Kim's childhood name -- Yura, which is Russian and was
used through his high-school years. Kim had a younger brother who also had a Russian nickname,
Shura. In 1945, after Japan was defeated and the northern half of Korea occupied by Soviet troops,
Kim Il Sung was taken to Pyongyang by his Soviet benefactors and installed as the leader of North
Korea. (The official version has Kim Il Sung heroically leading Korean guerrillas in a rout of the
Japanese.) A few months later, the boys moved to Pyongyang, where their younger sister, Kim Kyung
Hee, was born.
Shura died in 1948 in a drowning accident while swimming in a pond with Kim Jong Il. In 1949, Kim's
mother, Kim Jong Sook, died while giving birth to a stillborn child. Though well cared for -- their father,
after all, was North Korea's leader -- Kim Jong Il and his little sister became de facto orphans: their
mother dead, their father busy laying the groundwork for his socialist paradise. In 1950, the Korean
War broke out, and the children were sent to the safety of Manchuria, where they stayed until the war
ended in 1953. Kim was learning to survive on his own, which meant using his wits.
Back in Pyongyang, he attended Namsan Senior High School, where the ruling elite's children were
educated; he often rode a motorcycle to class. Even then, he was a student of power. According to
Hwang Jang Yop, who was a top aide to Kim Il Sung, the younger Kim showed an early interest in
politics. (Hwang defected from North Korea in 1997, so his memoir, published in South Korea, is
hardly an official hagiography.) In 1959 Hwang accompanied Kim Il Sung to Moscow, and although
Kim Jong Il was only a senior in high school, he went along, too.
''Kim Jong Il was intelligent and full of curiosity, asking me many questions,'' Hwang wrote. ''Despite
his young age, he already harbored political ambitions. He paid special attention to his father. . . .
Every morning he would help his father to get up and put on his shoes.'' In the evening, Hwang wrote,
when Kim Il Sung returned from a day of official meetings, Kim Jong Il assembled his father's staff
''and had them report to him about the things that happened during the day. He then proceeded to give
orders.''
In 1964, Kim graduated with a degree in political economy from Kim Il Sung University, an elite
institution where, according to a South Korean biographer, he was addressed as ''the premier's son.''
He went to work in the central committee of the Korean Workers Party, first as a ministerial assistant,
swiftly becoming a senior official in the propaganda and agitation department, which controlled much
of the party's agenda.
Kim was working his way up the system, and working the system, but also looking over his shoulder.
Nothing in his rise to power would be easy or preordained. Dynastic succession was far from
inevitable, and even if there was to be a dynasty, it was not clear whether Kim would be its beneficiary.
His uncle, Kim Young Ju, was a senior government official. More threatening, however, was Kim's new
stepmother: Kim Song Ae, a typist whom Kim Il Sung married in the early 1960's.
According to accounts from defectors, as well as from Chinese and Soviet visitors to North Korea, Kim
Jong Il did not get along with his stepmother. There are unconfirmed stories that he tore her face out
of pictures. Kim Song Ae became a member of the central committee of the Korean Workers Party,
giving her a position from which to influence succession. She had children with Kim Il Sung, and one
of their sons, Kim Pyong Il, was viewed as a possible heir because of his intelligence and likeness to
his father. (Famously, Kim Jong Il was several inches shorter than his father, an inconvenience that
led him to wear platform shoes.)
As he moved to secure his position, Kim needed to remain in the good graces of his father while
outmaneuvering his stepmother, half-brother, uncle and anyone else -- particularly the country's
powerful generals -- who wished to lead North Korea.
Kim Il Sung's regime did not take long to veer from Communist orthodoxy and become a personality
cult of the sort perfected by Stalin in the Soviet Union. In the early 1970's, North Koreans began
wearing lapel pins bearing the likeness of the Great Leader, as the official media described Kim Il
Sung; he was portrayed as, basically, infallible. The elite was purged of anyone with wavering loyalty
or anyone who might develop wavering loyalties; Kim Il Sung placed close relatives at his side.
During this period, Kim Jong Il was working hard to smooth his way to power.
''I had an impression that he was implementing his plans to get rid of even those very close to Kim Il
Sung, including his uncle,'' Hwang wrote. ''In order to show his father that he was the most loyal, he
singled out people near Kim Il Sung. Arguing that these people were not loyal and citing doubts about
their ideology or competency, he would relentlessly attack and remove them.''
Until recently, conventional wisdom held that through the 70's and 80's Kim Jong Il filled his nights with
parties and days with terrorism. In 1987, two North Korean agents placed a bomb aboard a Korean Air
Lines flight, killing all 115 people on board. One agent, a young woman, was caught and said after
extradition to Seoul that her controllers told her the attack was ordered by Kim Jong Il.
Whatever his role in terrorism, it has become clear that Kim Jong Il was running North Korea well
before his ailing father died in 1994, at the age of 82, of an apparent heart attack. In the years before
his death, according to Hwang, ''Kim Il Sung was not the Kim Il Sung of years past. Most of his vitality
had disappeared, and he was turning into an old man concerned only with successfully handing over
power to Kim Jong Il.''
Many North Korea experts believe Kim Jong Il stayed in the background for the sake of appearances:
in a Confucian society, a son must defer, publicly, to his father. If Kim Jong Il moved too rashly, he
might have engendered resentment from elderly members of the military whose backing or quiescence
he needed.
One way he cemented his hold on power was to do as his father did: place close relatives in influential
positions. Kim's sister, Kim Kyung Hee, became a powerful figure within the Korean Workers Party
and has been referred to in the government media as ''First Lady.'' Her husband, Chang Song Taek,
heads the party's organizational department. His brother, Chang Song U, commands the army district
that defends Pyongyang.
Kim's control over the military and his insinuation of loyalists into key command positions are a
linchpin of his hold on power. He travels often within North Korea, particularly to military bases,
because, as he told the South Korean media chiefs, ''my power comes from the military.'' Though he
has many posts, including general secretary of the Korean Workers Party, the one that truly counts is
his chairmanship of the National Defense Commission, which controls the armed forces.
im's regime is best understood as an imperial court, clouded in intrigue, not unlike the royal
households that ruled Japan, China and, throughout most of its existence, Korea itself. Until the 20th
century, Korea was led by feudal kings, notably the Yi dynasty. By creating a personal and uncaring
regime, Kim Il Sung wasn't stealing a page from only Stalin; he was also stealing it from Korean
history, a fact that helps explain its durability.
''North Korea is a semifeudal society that is still based on traditional Korean values,'' says Alexandre
Mansourov, a scholar at the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies who was a Soviet diplomat based
in Pyongyang in the 1980's. ''There are traces of modernity, but if you look at the structure of thinking,
it is very traditional, in a medieval sense.''
A hallmark of emperors is lavish court entertainment in the face of poverty or distress in their domains.
Kim Jong Il appeared to be cut from this imperial cloth. Through the 70's and 80's, stories emerged
from North Korea of wild parties Kim Jong Il held, attended by beautiful women and drunken men. One
of the finest accounts of that era comes from Choi Eun Hee, a popular South Korean actress who was
kidnapped from Hong Kong in 1978 and bundled off to North Korea. Kim was disappointed with the
backward state of North Korea's film industry, so he tried to jump-start it by ordering the kidnapping of
Choi and, shortly thereafter, her husband, Shin Sang Ok, a director in Seoul.
After they were taken to Pyongyang, he explained to them, in a conversation that they surreptitiously
recorded, ''I just said, 'I need those two people, so bring them here,' so my comrades just carried out
the operation.'' Eight years later, after making a number of films in North Korea, Choi and Shin
escaped while visiting Vienna.
In a memoir she wrote with her husband, ''Kidnapped to the North Korean Paradise,'' which has not
been published in English, Choi recalls being woken one morning at 5 at the guarded villa where Kim
had placed her. Her controller told her to get dressed quickly, but wouldn't say why. Within minutes, a
Mercedes arrived at the villa and whisked her into central Pyongyang, to a building used for Kim Jong
Il's parties.
''As I entered,'' Choi wrote, ''I was assaulted with the pungent odor of alcohol. Farther inside, I saw
quite a spectacle. Forty or 50 people apparently had partied all night. The men were drunk, and there
were several women I had never seen before.''
They perked up when the actress arrived. She was prevailed upon to have a drink, then another and
another. The Dear Leader was not in mint condition; his eyes were bloodshot, and his speech was
slurred. He had apparently been drinking all night long.
''A band was performing in the front of the room,'' Choi wrote. ''All the girls were in their 20's. Kim Jong
Il, drunk, gave a string of requests. Songs changed according to his request. The girls looked tired. He
asked me to conduct the band. I declined, but then the others joined in on the request: 'Comrade Choi,
our beloved leader doesn't let just anybody conduct the band. It's a great honor. Do it.'''
So she did it. She soon felt ill from the alcohol, and Kim Jong Il ordered one of the women to take her
to a room upstairs to rest. She fell asleep on a sofa, but was soon woken by a senior party official. ''I
felt lips on my cheek,'' she recalled. She slapped the official and told him to get lost.
Accounts of this sort gave the impression, outside North Korea, that Kim Jong Il was no more
competent to take charge of his homeland than Hugh Hefner. Now, however, his bacchanalian ways
are being viewed from a different, subtler perspective. As anyone who has spent time with South
Korean or Japanese politicians knows, boozing and womanizing are an integral part of their political
culture. Your drinking buddy is your political ally. It is the equivalent, in Tokyo and Seoul, of jogging
with George W. Bush. Bonds are forged; loyalties, rewarded.
While at high school, Kim Jong Il had a close friend whose older brother was married to a particularly
attractive young woman, Sung Hae Rim. At the time she was 19. Kim noticed her beauty, as teenage
boys do, but nothing came of it until he graduated from college and, while working at the central
committee, immersed himself in a passion that would remain with him for the rest of his life: movies.
He often visited Pyongyang's main film studio to watch movies and visit sets. He would later receive
credit for producing at least a half dozen films and musicals, and he wrote two books, ''On the Art of
Cinema'' and ''Kim Jong Il on the Art of Opera'' (both works are sold at Amazon.com).
During one visit to the studio, he again noticed Sung Hae Rim, who had become an actress and was
usually cast in the role of a heroine. One thing led to another, and Kim fell in love. Inconveniently,
Sung Hae Rim was married and had a child, but according to her sister, Sung Hae Rang, who
defected in 1996 and recently published a memoir in Korean, Kim forced Sung to leave her husband
and live with him.
It was a strange and tragic situation. Kim could not marry Sung because of her previous marriage, her
child and the fact that she was six years his senior; in a Confucian society, a match of that sort would
be frowned upon, especially for a man who was to inherit a nation. Kim did not even feel safe telling
his strait-laced father about his new love; the affair could bump him off the fast track to succession.
According to Sung Hae Rang's memoir, which is called ''Wisteria House,'' her sister was moved to one
of Kim's secluded villas and rarely traveled outside of it. In 1971, she became pregnant. This posed a
logistical inconvenience, because Kim could not visit the hospital where she gave birth. To do so
would reveal to prying eyes that he was the father of an illegitimate child.
Sung's sister wrote that Kim and Sung arranged a covert system to inform him of his child's birth and
its sex. Kim parked his car outside the hospital every night she was there and flicked his lights on and
off to signal that it was he. Once the baby was born, Sung signaled back the birth of the child and its
sex by flicking the room's light on and off in a prearranged sequence.
The child was a boy, and he was named Kim Jong Nam. Within a few years of his birth, Sung Hae Rim
began suffering insomnia and other nervous disorders. She was sent to Moscow for treatment at
sanitariums and spent most of the remainder of her life there; she died in Russia in 2002. When her
sister left for Moscow, Sung Hae Rang was put in charge of the boy's upbringing. Though it became
known in Pyongyang that he was Kim Jong Il's son, Kim Jong Nam remained cloistered at different
villas and was eventually sent with Song Hae Rang and her son, Lee Il Nam, to Geneva, where Kim
Jong Nam was enrolled at a private school. Lee Il Nam disappeared from Geneva and emerged later
in Seoul. He wrote a memoir about his life in the Dear Leader's household, and in 1997 he was killed
in what South Korean officials say was an assassination by North Korean agents.
The palace intrigue had other chapters. Kim Il Sung became aware of Kim Jong Il's affair and
disapproved of it. In the early 70's, he ordered his son to marry Kim Young Sook, the daughter of a
senior military official. Although Kim Jong Il does not spend much time with his ''official'' wife, she has
remained loyal to him. She is not considered a power broker. She bore a daughter by Kim; the
daughter has played no role in politics.
Kim soon fell for yet another woman, Ko Young Hee, a dancer who caught his eye when her troupe
performed at one of his parties. A delicate beauty, she was from a family of Koreans who had lived in
Japan and immigrated to North Korea in the 1960's. Kim could not wed her -- he was already married,
after all -- so he housed her in still another of his villas. She soon bore him two sons, and last year she
was spoken of publicly -- and favorably -- in the North Korean media, suggesting that her sons were
rising in official esteem. Early this month, however, a Japanese newspaper reported that Ko Young
Hee was seriously injured in a car crash.
In 2001, Kim Jong Nam was detained at Narita airport, outside Tokyo, as he was trying to enter the
country with two women and a 4-year-old boy on a fraudulent passport from the Dominican Republic.
He said he just wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland. He was expelled to China. Because, in part, of this
embarrassment, Kim Jong Nam is no longer considered a front-runner for succession; two North
Korea watchers in Seoul told me that he lives in China and is afraid to return to North Korea. It now
appears that Kim Jong Chul, 22, the Dear Leader's son by his mistress Ko Young Hee, is first in line
for succession.
At 8 in the morning on July 26, 2001, a five-car train rolled into Khasan, which is on the Russian side
of the border between Russia and North Korea. A carpeted platform was brought to the main car, and
when its door opened, Kim Jong Il emerged, waving and smiling to the officials assembled at the
station. Kim was embarking on the longest foreign trip in his adult life, a 24-day rail odyssey across
Russia.
Journalists scrambled to various cities on the itinerary -- Khabarovsk, Omsk, St. Petersburg and
Moscow -- hoping to catch a glimpse of the mysterious North Korean. Few of them succeeded,
because Kim was kept far apart from inquiring eyes. He traveled in an armored rail car, with a
locomotive seven minutes ahead to make sure the track was safe and another locomotive several
minutes behind to make sure nobody could commandeer a train and ram it into the rear of the Dear
Leader's caravan.
For the Russians who escorted Kim, the trip offered the first prolonged encounter foreigners would
have with him. The informal silence about the trip lasted for more than a year, until Konstantin
Pulikovsky, a presidential envoy who headed the Russian delegation escorting Kim, published a
memoir in Russian about the journey. This led other officials to discuss it, including Georgy Toloraya, a
diplomat who had been based in North Korea and speaks fluent Korean.
The Dear Leader, it turns out, does not travel third class. His train was stocked with live lobster,
French wine and fresh pastries, and his entourage included four young women who entertained him
and his companions by singing songs in Korean and Russian. One car was a meeting room with two
flat-panel screens, one for films (videos of military parades were among his favorites) and the other for
a satellite-updated map of the train's progress, much like the ones in airplane cabins.
Kim visited an array of sites, including a pig farm, a brewery, a space firm and the Hermitage Museum.
He even went to a department store in Khabarovsk, where he stopped at the perfume department and
asked where the scents came from. He spent a few minutes in the beauty salon and also visited the
sports department, where skis and sportswear were sold; he rubbed the fabrics to assess their quality.
In the men's-wear department, he inquired why some pants had cuffs and some didn't, and he seemed
surprised at the cost of Italian shoes -- about $400.
''Do people here really buy such expensive shoes?'' he asked.
For the Russians, Kim's rail odyssey confirmed what they had been thinking of the Dear Leader -- that
he is smart and wants to reform his country's failed economy, but does not wish to lose power. ''When
I read somewhere that he is a madman who doesn't understand what he is doing -- that is laughable
stuff,'' said Toloraya, the Russian diplomat who was on the train and met Kim on several dozen
occasions. Toloraya is now the Russian consul general in Sydney, and I interviewed him on the
phone. ''He is a professional in state governance. What he does is very well prepared. It would be a
mistake to think of him as an impossible, unpredictable character. He is an emotional person, but he is
a professional. He knows what he is doing. He plans several steps ahead.''
The Russians weren't the only ones getting to know the charms and wishes of the Dear Leader. Kim's
coming-out to the rest of the world included, in October 2000, an unprecedented visit to North Korea
by an American delegation led by Secretary of State Albright. This was in the waning days of the
Clinton administration, before the 1994 nuclear agreement fell apart, and Albright wanted to sound out
Kim on a plan for ending his missile-production program; Kim, in return, wanted Clinton to visit
Pyongyang.
The Americans were in for some surprises.
The North Koreans had promised that Albright would see Kim, but when she arrived in Pyongyang, her
schedule did not include a meeting with him. Her delegation was whisked into the city in the early
morning, to the guest house where they would stay, and shortly afterward they were taken on a tour
that many foreign visitors go through in Pyongyang, highlighted -- that may not be the right word -- by
a visit to the tomb of Kim Il Sung.
At lunch, Albright was abruptly told she would meet Kim in the afternoon. The delegation was driven to
his guest house, and as Albright stood in front of a huge mural depicting a storm at sea, Kim walked
in, greeting her with both hands extended forward. They were about the same height, Albright in her
heels and Kim in his platform shoes.
He poured on the charm. Kim asked Albright if she had seen any recent films, and when she replied
''Gladiator,'' Kim said he had seen ''Amistad,'' which he described as ''very sad.'' He proudly told
Wendy Sherman, who was in Pyongyang as special adviser to Clinton on North Korea: ''I own all the
Academy Award movies. I've watched them all.''
Smart as he is, Kim lives in a different world and doesn't always realize it. One evening, the Albright
delegation was shepherded into a stadium in Pyongyang, where they were seated next to Kim. For the
next two hours the Americans were treated to a ''mass game'' -- a fantasia of synchronized gymnastics
on the stadium floor and card-turning displays on the opposite side of the stadium. The exactitude of
these ''games'' is terrifying. They are often staged on important national occasions; dignitaries from
friendly countries were invited to a particularly spectacular display to mark Kim Jong Il's birthday last
year. I attended a mass game display in Pyongyang in 1989, and the sensation a Westerner feels is
not artistic appreciation but totalitarian horror.
One card montage performed for Albright showed a North Korean missile being launched into the sky.
It was an odd display for Americans who were negotiating a cessation of missile production and
research. But Kim, ever the showman, turned to Albright on his right and said, ''That was our first
missile launch and our last.'' To make sure his message got through, he turned to Sherman on his left
and repeated his statement. The meaning was clear: the missile program can be stopped if you offer
us a new relationship. ''This was totally orchestrated, the cards and turning to us,'' Sherman said when
I spoke with her at the Washington office of the Albright Group, a consulting firm. ''For all I know, that
was the purpose of taking us to the stadium.''
Albright and Sherman returned to Washington convinced that Kim Jong Il's stated intentions should be
put to the test: he should be offered a new relationship with the U.S. government, including a visit by
Clinton to North Korea, if he was willing to submit to a verifiable agreement on halting missile
research, production, deployment and exports. This was a position that critics would certainly attack as
appeasement, but for Albright and Sherman, it was a price worth paying to end the North Korean
missile threat.
''I have no illusions about Kim,'' Sherman said. ''He's charming but totally controlling. He is a leader
who has left his people with no freedom, no choices, no food, no future. People are executed. There
are labor camps. But the decision we have to make is whether to try to deal with him to open the
country so that the people of North Korea do have freedom, do have choices, do have food. Do I think
it would be preferable to not deal with him? Yes, but the consequences are horrible, so you have to
deal with him.''
The clock ran out. There wasn't enough time before Clinton left office to negotiate the agreements that
would need to be in place before Air Force One could take off for North Korea. The momentum halted
with the advent of the Bush administration. But now, with the second round of six-party talks nearing,
the Americans are trying to figure out once again whether and how to deal with Kim.
Choe Hak Rae, the former newspaper publisher, remains hopeful. The way he sees it, Kim Jong Il
knows his economy has failed and wants to reform it. Signs of change in the north are already evident:
some prices have been deregulated, farmers' markets have been established and North Korean
officials have been dispatched to foreign countries to learn about business. The bear wants to get out
of its cage, Choe says. ''The more he is regarded as the worst person of the century, the more he will
become a dangerous man,'' Choe told me. ''But if safety and security are guaranteed for himself and
North Korea, I don't think he will be a danger.''
Wendy Sherman is more cautious, but she and other advocates of engagement say that Kim believes,
erroneously, that he can control the tempo and impact of opening up to the rest of the world. It is not
clear yet whether her point of view has much traction in the Bush administration, which veers from
warlike hostility to occasional murmurs of peaceful coexistence if Kim disarms.
The notion that a dictator like Kim can be coaxed to reform has no real historical precedent. The most
notable totalitarian regimes of the modern era -- the ones developed by Stalin in the Soviet Union and
by Mao Zedong in China -- were not reformed by the men who shaped them. Reform of such states
requires a degree of repudiation that the authors of failure are loath to tolerate, mostly out of fear for
their own survival. In essence, proponents of engagement hope Kim will begin a process that will lead
to his downfall. It seems doubtful that he will be sufficiently selfless or stupid to do that.
The disarmament question is even stickier. The administration has waged two pre-emptive wars on
countries it deemed to be enemies -- Afghanistan and Iraq. It does not require Kissingerian smarts to
calculate that a member of the axis of evil would be death-wish foolish to relinquish the weapons of
mass destruction that may be the only thing, by virtue of the horrible implications of their use, that
stands in the way of an American attack. The real issue isn't whether Kim is crazy enough to amass a
nuclear arsenal but whether he is crazy enough to dispossess himself of his one bargaining chip.
What is the solution? I decided to seek out a man who knows Kim Jong Il better than anyone else
outside North Korea: Hwang Jang Yop. Hwang was the Karl Rove of North Korea for more than three
decades, creating the ideology of Juche, or self-sufficiency, that was the bedrock of Kim Il Sung's
regime and remains in place today -- though in name only, since North Korea depends on foreign aid
for its survival. Working at the center of the regime, Hwang learned what Kim Jong Il wants, what he
can do and what he will not do.
On a Saturday morning in August, I went with my interpreter to a private club in Seoul, where I met
Cho Gab Je, a prominent conservative journalist who edits a magazine, the Monthly Chosun, that is
known for its hard-hitting coverage of North Korea. We got into a sedan and drove to an office building
in a suburb of the city; Cho is friendly with Hwang and arranged for me to meet him. I agreed to not
provide details of the building or its location, other than to say that the anteroom is guarded by a
number of armed security agents and that you must pass through a metal detector before entering
Hwang's office. Hwang's caution is understandable: North Korea is believed to have agents in the
South who would be eager to silence their homeland's most famous traitor.
Hwang is 80 and hard of hearing; I sat in an armchair to his immediate left. He is small and thin and
was dressed in a dark blue suit and blue tie. He is not particularly warm with visitors or, it would seem,
with anybody. Though he lived a privileged life in North Korea -- he had a phone at his home, ample
food and a car, and he traveled extensively outside the country -- his defection has brought doom onto
his family. His wife is rumored to have committed suicide after his defection, as did his daughter, who
is said to have jumped out of a bus that was taking her to a prison camp. It is assumed that his other
children and grandchildren are in prison camps, if they are still alive.
He does not talk about his personal life, but he does talk about the Dear Leader.
''If I were to go into details, it would take many days,'' he said. ''As a politician or leader who can work
for the development of the state and the happiness of the people, he is an F student, a dropout. But as
a dictator he has an excellent ability. He can organize people so that they can't move, can't do
anything, and he can keep them under his ideology. As far as I know, the present North Korean
dictatorial system is the most precise and thorough in history.''
Hwang says that he believes foreign aid has helped Kim by providing the resources he needs to retain
the loyalty of his core constituencies -- the military and party elites. Hwang says he does not believe
Kim would ever allow foreign aid and investment to benefit the people who need it; Kim has shown no
interest in his people's material well-being, and given the choice between regime survival and national
prosperity, it's pretty clear which he would prefer. A few years ago, Kim began letting South Koreans
visit the north, and this was seen as a relaxation of the isolation of his information-starved subjects.
But the tourists, whose visits provide much-needed hard currency to the regime, are shepherded in
quarantinelike conditions that make them virtual prisoners; contact with ordinary North Koreans is nil.
Hwang says outsiders are naive to believe that Kim is ready to open up his country.
''South Korea is being fooled, and the Chinese, who should know best,'' he said. ''A considerable
number of people are being fooled, including the United States.''
Hwang's synopsis of Kim's dictatorship reminded me of a passage from his memoir. He wrote about a
1992 banquet that Kim presided over in Pyongyang; a dance troupe provided lavishly choreographed
entertainment.
The performance ''was enough to elicit disgust when seen through the eyes of people with healthy
minds,'' Hwang wrote, recalling that he nonetheless applauded vigorously for the entertainers. A
professor who was next to him was flummoxed.
''Are you clapping because you really enjoy the performance?'' the professor asked.
''It doesn't matter,'' Hwang replied. ''Just clap like mad. It's an order.''
Kim's hold on power depends not only on his willingness to impose misery upon his people but also on
the willingness of the North Korean elite to accept their privileges and say nothing. Many North
Koreans are well aware of the repressed and backward state of their homeland and wish it were
otherwise; recent visitors say North Koreans quietly express a desire for greater contact with the
outside world. The problem is that none of them are prepared to force or even nudge their wishes
upon Kim Jong Il. The Dear Leader understands, as smart tyrants do, that perpetual clapping is
generated by terror. That is why he works 20 hours a day to make sure the applause of fear does not
stop.
When his regime is brought to an end, as one day it will be, the cause will not be his napping. Kim has
had plenty of time, and he has worked hard, to insulate himself from the type of events that have led to
the collapse of other tyrannies and dynasties. But the downfall of dictators is unpredictable. The
collapse of the Soviet Union, the dissolution of its Eastern European brethren, the easing of Maoist
discipline in China -- these happened in ways that were not foreseen. It is very likely, too, that the
unimaginable will get Kim Jong Il in the end.
In Lockstep
In June 2002, the Japanese photographer Koichiro Otaki was given a rare opportunity to photograph
the ''mass games,'' choreographed performances that were held to celebrate the 60th birthday of Kim
Jong Il. The games, held in the gigantic May Day Stadium in Pyongyang, involved more than 100,000
participants, mostly students; they took place six days a week for two months. Dancers on the field
performed elaborate and precisely coordinated routines, while people in the stands held up intricate
sequences of colored cards to create huge mosaiclike images.
http://www.taz.de
11.02.2009
Kim Jong-Ils Geburtstag
Nordkoreas Sonne ist unsterblich
Die Nachbarländer zittern, die Erben warten. Aber Nordkoreas Diktator stirbt und stirbt nicht. Nächste
Woche feiert er einen pompösen Blumengeburtstag.
VON JUTTA LIETSCH
Totkrank? Von wegen: Geheimniskrämer Kim Jong-il besucht die werktätige Bevölkerung.
Am Montag wird sich ein rotes Blumenmeer entfalten. In den Ausstellungshallen von Pjöngjang, ganz
in der Nähe des 1. Mai-Stadions, wird die Pracht einer speziellen Sorte von Begonien arrangiert, den
Kimjongilia. Sie wurden einst für jenen Mann geschaffen, der am Montag Geburtstag hat: Kim Jong-Il,
Nordkoreas Machthaber. Ihm schenken die Ministerien und Fabriken, die Polizei, die Milizen und die
Armee all die Blumen, um ihre Liebe und Ergebenheit zu zeigen. Er wird 67 Jahre alt und dieser
Geburtstag ist ein besonderer: Ausländische Geheimdienste wollen vergangenen Jahr erfahren
haben, dass er schwer krank war, womöglich einen Schlaganfall erlitt. Und jetzt ist er immer noch da.
Ob er sich zu seinem Geburtstag öffentlich zeigen wird, ist ungewiss. Er liebt das Versteckspiel schon
lange. Die Nordkoreaner sind daran gewöhnt, dass er oft über Monate in der Versenkung
verschwindet. Aber Kim Jong-Il trägt den Ehrentitel "Sonne des 21. Jahrhunderts" und ist somit
unsterblich. Deshalb wäre es im Grunde unnötig, darüber nachzudenken, wie die Zukunft des Landes
ohne ihn aussähe.
Doch die Nachbarländer hat die lange Abwesenheit aufgeschreckt. Sie fürchten, dass ein plötzliches
Ende Kims Machtkämpfe auslösen könnte, die im schlimmsten Fall in einen Bürgerkrieg münden - mit
Millionen Flüchtlingen, die über die Grenzen nach Südkorea, China und Russland strömen. Und was
passiert dann mit Nordkoreas Atomwaffen? Die Gefahr wäre groß, dass nordkoreanische Offiziere und
Techniker Bomben und Know-how an Terroristen verkaufen könnten.
Wer Nachfolger Kims werden könnte, ist ungewiss. Im Gegensatz zu seinem Vater, der ihn lange vor
seinem Tod 1994 zum Thronerben kürte, hat Kim bislang nicht entschieden, wer das Land regieren
soll. Er selbst scheint ein seltsames Verhältnis zu wichtigen Personalien zu haben.
Als Vater Kim starb, zeigte der Sohn seine Pietät, indem er ablehnte, Präsident zu werden. Statt
dessen wacht der tote Kim Il-sung als "Präsident auf Ewigkeit" aus dem Jenseits über die
Nordkoreaner, während Sohn Kim nur Generalsekretär der Partei und Vorsitzender des "Nationalen
Verteidigungsrates" und damit offiziell Oberkommandierender der Armee ist.
"Nordkorea ist wie ein schwarzes Loch. Jede Analyse des Landes beruht nur auf Annahmen", sagt der
chinesische Korea-Experte Chu Shulong von der Pekinger Qinghua-Universität.
Gerade dieses Nicht-Wissen führt zu Gerüchten. Kim habe den jüngsten seiner drei Söhne von zwei
Frauen, den 25 Jahre alten Kim Jong-un, gerade zum Nachfolger bestimmt, spekulierten
südkoreanische Medien. Sein ältester Sohn, der 38 Jahre alte Kim Jong-nam, der als
Computerexperte gilt, sei schon vor ein paar Jahren in Ungnade gefallen, weil er sich auf dem
Flughafen in Tokio mit gefälschtem Pass erwischen ließ. Derzeit lebt der rundliche Mann mit dem Ruf
eines Playboys vor allem im südchinesischen Macao und in Peking. Den 27 Jahre alten mittleren
Sohn, Kim Jong-chul, wiederum halte Kim für zu weich und nicht geeignet für einen Regenten
Nordkoreas. Beweise für all diese Behauptungen gibt es nicht.
Auch die vierte Ehefrau Kims, Kim Ok, und sein Bruder, Botschafter in Polen, werden immer wieder
als Kandidaten für die Nachfolge der Kim-Dynastie genannt. Kim Ok war einst Mitglied einer
nordkoreanischen Delegation in Washington.
Sie selbst soll jedoch den jüngsten Filius als Nachfolger favorisieren. Ein wichtiges Wort könnte auch
Kims Schwager, ein hoher Parteifunktionär, mitreden. Seine Frau ist derzeit Ministerin für
Leichtindustrie.
Womöglich werde, so vermuten Experten, eine gemischte Regierung aus Militärs und Zivilisten die
Geschicke des ausgehungerten Landes übernehmen. Welche Rolle die Kims überhaupt spielen
werden, ist ungewiss. Selbst die hartgesottenen Militärs hätten die Regierung einer Kim-Dynastie
über, heißt es unter Experten. Fest scheint aber zu stehen, dass die Familie versuchen wird, ihre
Pfründe zu sichern. Am Montag feiern sie erst einmal Geburtstag.
http://www.taz.de
15.01.2009
Bericht über Wechsel in Nordkorea
Kim Jong Il übergibt Macht an Sohn
Beobachter sind überrascht: Nordkoreas Diktator Kim Jong Il hat seinen 24-jährigen Sohn Kim Jong
Un zum Nachfolger ernannt, berichtet eine südkoreanische Nachrichtenagentur. VON MARTIN FRITZ
Kim Jong Il ist seit Monaten nicht mehr öffentlich aufgetreten. Dieses Foto stammt von 2005. Foto:
dpa
TOKIO taz Der nordkoreanische Machthaber Kim Jong-il hat offenbar seinen dritten Sohn Jong-un
zum Thronfolger der Familiendynastie ernannt. Nach Erkenntnissen des südkoreanischen
Geheimdienstes hat der Diktator die Führung der kommunistischen Partei bereits vergangene Woche
über die Regelung der Nachfolge informiert.
Kim Jong-un ist der jüngere von zwei Söhnen, die Kim mit seiner dritten Ehefrau Ko Yong-hi hat, die
2004 an Brustkrebs starb. Jong-un soll 1984 geboren sein, wurde wohl in einem Schweizer Internat
erzogen und gilt als Liebling von Kim Ok, der langjährigen Sekretärin und seit dem Tod von Jong-uns
Mutter neuen Lebenspartnerin von Führer Kim. Seitdem wurde Kim Jong-un als Thronfolger
gehandelt.
AnzeigeAllerdings bekleidet Jong-un, anders als sein zwei bis drei Jahre älterer Bruder, bisher kein
einziges Amt. Doch das könnte sich bald ändern: Für Anfang März hat das kommunistische Land eine
seit dem Sommer überfällige Parlamentswahl angesetzt. Südkoreanische Nordkorea-Experten
spekulieren, Kim Jong-un könnte erst einen Sitz in der Obersten Volksversammlung und danach einen
wichtigen Posten in der Nationalen Verteidigungskommission bekommen, der eigentlichen
Machtzentrale.
Kims Nachfolgeentscheidung kommt überraschend und ist ein sehr starkes Indiz dafür, dass der
"geliebte Führer" sich von seinem Schlaganfall im August erholt hat und die Zügel wieder fest in der
Hand hält. Nach seiner Erkrankung war Kim monatelang von der Bildfläche verschwunden. Doch in
den letzten Wochen hatten die Staatsmedien mit steigender Frequenz Fotos von ihm veröffentlicht.
http://www.taz.de
11.09.2008
Nordkoreas Diktator fehlt bei Staatsjubiläum
Großer Führer verschwunden
Bei der Parade zum 60. Jahrestag der Staatsgründung Nordkoreas fehlte Kim Jong Il. Ist der "Große
Führer" schwer erkrankt? Ohne offizielle Information blühen Theorien.
VON JUTTA LIETSCH
The Man who wasn't there: Nordkoreas Großer Führer Kim Jong Il. Foto: dpa
Wochenlang hatten sie für die große Parade geübt. Statt nach der Arbeit nach Hause zu gehen,
mussten zehntausende Nordkoreaner trainieren, im perfekten Gleichklang zu marschieren, um den
60. Jahrestag der Gründung ihres Staates zu feiern.
Doch als die Männer und Frauen am Dienstag vor der Tribüne in mehr als 30 quadratischen Kolonnen
vorbeidefilierten, suchten sie dort oben vergeblich den Mann, der ihr Schicksal seit 14 Jahren lenkt:
Der 66-jährige Generalsekretär, Große Führer und Generalissimus Kim Jong Il war nicht gekommen.
Auch auf dem anschließenden Massen-Fackelzug und dem Bankett für ausländische Delegationen
tauchte er nicht auf.
Das war nicht die einzige Merkwürdigkeit dieser Feier, für die Pjöngjangs Bewohner drei Tage frei
bekommen hatten: Die Parade fand zudem völlig ohne Militärs statt. Stattdessen marschierten nur die
Milizen mit ihren typischen Ballonmützen über den Platz im Zentrum Pjöngjangs. Schwere Waffen und
Panzer führten sie nicht vor.
Die Abwesenheit Kims, dessen Vater Kim Il Sung einst die "Demokratische Volksrepublik Korea"
ausgerufen und damit die Teilung der koreanischen Halbinsel besiegelt hatte, heizt die Gerüchte und
Spekulationen über eine schwere Krankheit des Politikers und eine Krise in der Führung des
abgeschotteten Staates an.
Kim habe bereits am 22. August einen Schlaganfall erlitten, berichten südkoreanische Zeitungen, die
sich auf Geheimdienste stützen. Mediziner aus China und Frankreich seien an sein Krankenbett geeilt.
Doch genau weiß niemand etwas. In Nordkorea ist es tabu, über die Gesundheit des Führers zu
spekulieren: "Wir erfahren hier immer alles zuletzt", sagte eine Bewohnerin der Hauptstadt. Ein
nordkoreanischer Diplomat wies Zweifel an Kims Gesundheit als Beweis einer "Verschwörung" gegen
sein Land zurück.
So darf auch über eine mögliche Nachfolge Kims nicht gesprochen werden. Anders als Staatsgründer
Kim Il Sung, der 1994 plötzlich starb, hat sein Sohn keinen Nachfolger bestimmt. Fachleute gehen
davon aus, dass die Dynastie am Ende ist und keiner der drei Kim-Söhne neuer Herrscher wird. Das
mächtige Militär, heißt es, wird so eine Erbfolge nicht mehr akzeptieren. Wahrscheinlicher sei eine
Militärjunta. Davon gehen auch chinesische Experten aus.
Die Spekulationen über die Gesundheit Kims fallen in eine heikle Zeit. Diplomaten und ausländische
Besucher sprechen von einer neuen Eiszeit auf der koreanischen Halbinsel. Die Hoffnung auf einen
baldigen Friedensvertrag mit den USA, der den Koreakrieg (1950-53) offiziell beenden würde, hat sich
vorerst zerschlagen.
Grund ist der Streit um Pjöngjangs Atomprogramm. Obwohl Nordkorea seinen Plutoniumreaktor in
Yongbyon verschrottet hat, haben die USA das Land nicht von der Liste der Terrorstaaten gestrichen,
weil sie zuerst "nachprüfbare Belege" fordern, dass nicht woanders noch Atomanlagen stehen.
Pjöngjangs Generäle fühlen sich getäuscht.
Hardliner unter den Militärs sehen ihr tiefes Misstrauen gegenüber den Absichten der USA bestätigt.
General Kim Yong Chun, Vizevorsitzender der Nationalen Verteidigungskommission, rief zu
"Wachsamkeit" auf. "Hinter dem Vorhang des Dialogs" hätten die USA nichts anderes im Sinn, als
Nordkorea zu "zerschlagen".
Andere Politiker hoffen weiterhin auf eine Annäherung an die USA und eine allmähliche Öffnung. Der
protokollarische Staatschef Kim Yong Nam erklärte vor ausländischen Gästen, seine Regierung sei
fest entschlossen, bis zum Jahr 2012 die Tore des Landes so weit zu öffnen, dass es "stark und
wohlhabend" wird.
Möglich ist deshalb, dass sich Militärs und zivile Führung derzeit über den weiteren Kurs gegenüber
den USA streiten. So viel ist sicher: Niemand ist in Pjöngjang bislang stark genug, Reformen nach
dem Vorbild Chinas durchzusetzen. Während sich viele Nordkoreaner durch kleine Privatgeschäfte
über Wasser halten und die Bauern ihre Privatparzellen bepflanzen, hält das Regime an seinem
Staatssozialismus fest. Ein harter Winter steht bevor. In vielen Städten fällt tagelang der Strom aus,
die Ernten sind knapp, Millionen Nordkoreaner müssen wieder auf Lebensmittelhilfen hoffen.
Niemand will aber ausschließen, dass Kim wieder auftaucht, womöglich bei einer der abendlichen
Arirang-Massengymnastik-Veranstaltungen im "1.-Mai-Stadion", bei denen Zehntausende in diesen
Tagen zur Ehre der Kims marschieren, tanzen und Saltos schlagen müssen.
http://www.csmonitor.com
On birthday of Kim Jong-il's son, a North Korea rising star
On the birthday of Kim Jong-un, North Korea leader Kim Jong-il's son, newspaper drew attention to
the "unusual brightness" and placement of Venus, which was seen as a good sign for Kim Jong-un.
By Donald Kirk, January 8, 2010
At least one of the planets appeared to be properly aligned – in the rhetoric from Pyongyang – when
North Korea’s heir apparent, Kim Jong-un, marked his 26th or 27th birthday Friday.
Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency reported several days ago that the “morning star” Venus
“shed an unusually bright light” above the lake that fills the crater of sacred Mount Paektu on North
Korea’s border with China.
Considering that North Korean mythology holds that Kim Jong-un’s father, Dear Leader Kim Jong-il,
was born in a log cabin on a slope of Paektu, at 9,000 feet the highest peak on the Korean peninsula,
observers take the report of Venus shimmering high above as a serious portent.
North Korea’s party newspaper Rodong Sinmun evoked the image of Paektu again on Friday, calling
on readers to “toast to the endlessly bright future of Chosun (the traditional name for Korea) that will
resemble the shape of the sun and the holy land of Paektu.”
The editorial, like the report on “the morning star Venus,” did not mention Kim Jong-un by name, but
analysts are confident of the connection. “They believe Venus symbolized Kim Jong-un,” says Ryoo
Kihl-jae, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, carefully measuring his words.
“Many people who have visited North Korea say so.”
Whether or not Kim Jong-un is openly declared as heir to his father’s power, reports of birthday
observances around the country leave little doubt of his rising stature.
Defense commission could be springboard
Daily NK, one of several organizations in Seoul that write about North Korea, reported Friday on a
“central conference” in Pyongyang and elsewhere featuring “commemorative events” for officials and
“lectures for residents.” Such a conference is normally a grand affair, similar to those staged annually
for Kim Jong-il’s birthday, which falls next month, or the birthdays of Kim Jong-il's father, Great Leader
Kim Il-sung, who died in 1994, and mother, Kim Jong-suk, who died in 1949.
The commemorations parallel meetings going on around the country to rev up support for a
revaluation of North Korea’s currency that has stripped a small but rising mercantile middle class of
much of the money hoarded from often illicit black-market dealings. The currency reform is widely
viewed as having failed since while the newly valued money goes down markedly in value, hunger
persists, and markets flounder.
For all the signs of Kim Jong-un’s growing stature, however, his exact age remains uncertain. That’s
presumed to be because North Korea’s aging leadership may well see him as far too young and
inexperienced while his father hastily grooms him for power by giving him increasing responsibilities
and escorting him on visits to military units and factories.
The North Korean media has reported that Kim Jong-un was born in 1982, one year earlier than the
year previously believed. His mother, Ko Young-hee, born in Japan, once a dancer in one of the
troupes that performs for North Korea’s ruling elite as well as foreign visitors, reportedly died in 2004,
likely from breast cancer.
Kim Jong-un is believed to be serving on the national defense commission while also serving an
apprenticeship in the department of organization and guidance, a nebulous agency with tentacles
throughout the armed forces, the government, and the Workers’ Party, the three pillars of the North
Korean power ruling structure.
A position for Kim Jong-un on the defense commission could well serve as a springboard to succeed
his father, the commission chairman, who took over the post well before the death in 1994 of his own
father, Great Leader Kim Il-sung.
The Daily NK report adds credibility to a report by the rival NK Open Radio, which reported Thursday
that about 7,000 people attended the “central conference” in Pyongyang and that North Koreans on
Friday and Saturday are observing a two-day holiday. Ha Tae Keung, president of NK Open Radio,
says his station, which broadcasts two hours of news and analysis daily by short wave into North
Korea from Seoul, attributes the report to three different sources who inform the station from illegal cell
phone contacts near the North’s border with China.
“Of course the observances symbolize to their people the North Korean regime power shift,” says Mr.
Ha. “They officialize the power inheritance.”
New emphasis on youth
Yet another sign of the shift that’s under way is the emphasis placed in a New Year’s editorial
published in all North Korean newspapers on the rising power of youth.
The editorial described “the youth” as “a shock brigade in the great revolutionary upsurge” – and called
on young people to “become heroes, who add luster to the era of the great upsurge with undying labor
feats and talented persons.”
Those lines, toward the end of a lengthy message that placed primary emphasis on rebuilding the
economy, seems to be a reference to Kim Jong-un’s ascent. He is believed to have been on a fast
track to power for at least a year while uncertainty prevails regarding the health of his father, said to be
suffering from diabetes and a possible stroke.
Kim Jong-un “becomes more powerful as time goes on,” says Ryoo Kihl-jae. ”Some people argue that
he now has a position on the national defense commission,” the center of power in North Korea.
Kim Jong-un seems to have gotten the nod ahead of two older brothers. It is assumed that he
basically is a front person for a coterie of elderly leaders, including his uncle, Jang Sung-taek, brother
of his late mother.
Mr. Jang’s place in that leadership, however, “will be valid only as long as Kim Jong-il lives,” says Mr.
Ryoo. “It is not certain after Kim Jong-il dies.”
http://www.csmonitor.com
Did President Clinton meet N. Korea's Kim Jong-il or his look-alike?
The North Korean leader may be using look-alikes to hide his poor health. One analyst says that when
President Clinton visited in August, he met with an actor, not Kim Jong-il.
By Donald Kirk,
October 29, 2009
Will the real Kim Jong-il please stand up?
A number of analysts here are convinced that not all the photos being released of North Korea's
leader, Kim Jong-il, are really photos of Kim Jong-il.
Instead, they say, a look-alike has been standing in for him on some of the 122 trips he's reportedly
made this year to the countryside, factories, cultural events, military units, and all sorts of other
venues.
Some observers say the North Korean leader is too ill to make all these appearances. One Japanese
analyst claims President Clinton didn't meet with Kim Jong-il in August – he met with a Mr. Kim
double.
The evidence of Kim stand-ins is far from verified, but several North Korean refugees here say that
Kim has not one but several look-alikes playing his role.
Still, it's logical that for security reasons, Kim has one or more stand-ins, as did former Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein before the US invasion in 2003. One argument is that Kim has no time for all those
trips outside Pyongyang while his health remains uncertain and he's preparing his youngest son to
take over as early as next year.
Ha Tae-young, president of Open Radio for North Korea, which broadcasts two hours a day via
shortwave into North Korea, cites the word of one recent North Korean defector.
"He says he knows a girl whose father is the actor for Kim Jong-il," says Mr. Ha. "Recently Kim Jong-il
loses fat. He's very skinny these days. The defector says, If Kim Jong-il looks skinny, the actor can do
the same thing."
Some turn resemblance into acting career
Here in South Korea, there's a booming business in Kim Jong-il look-alikes. Dozens of people in
recent years have portrayed Kim Jong-il in television comedy shows, nightclub routines, and serious
movies and dramas.
After the inter-Korean summit of June 2000, in which Kim Jong-il received South Korea President Kim
Dae-jung in Pyongyang, the South Korean government discouraged such satires for fear of upsetting
reconciliation with the North.
Still, from time to time South Koreans delight in appearing on TV flaunting the curly-haired bouffant
hairstyle, platform shoes, and protruding stomach for which the Dear Leader was known before he
disappeared from view for months after reportedly suffering a stroke in August 2008.
The wave of public appearances reported by the North Korean propaganda machine since then to
show he's in good health convinces some analysts that North Korean actors are portraying the Dear
Leader, too – but in dead seriousness.
"That's possible," says Choi Jin-wook, senior fellow and specialist on North Korea at the Korea
Institute of National Unification. "These dictators always need look-alikes for security reasons. Kim
Jong-il is giving 'on-the-spot guidance' too often for his health."
Mr. Choi also says that North Korean photo editors are likely pasting in old pictures of Kim from
previous times when he was in good health.
Did Clinton meet with look-alike?
No one here, however, is ready to go as far as Japanese writer Toshimitsu Shigemura, who has
written two books and numerous articles claiming that Kim has been seriously ill for the past decade
and may even have died.
Mr. Shigemura says that if the real Kim, looking wan and weak, appeared before the Supreme
People's Assembly several days after North Korea fired a long-range missile on April 5, then it must
have been a look-alike who hosted former US President Bill Clinton in August.
"They were totally different people," says Mr. Shigemura, a former correspondent for Mainichi
Shimbun, a major Japanese newspaper, who now teaches international relations at Waseda
University in Tokyo. "In August, he looked very healthy."
Shigemura suspects that a skilled actor delivered the lines to Mr. Clinton during their three-hour, 17minute meeting, which ended with Mr. Clinton flying back to the US with two journalists who had been
held for 140 days.
Shigemura is equally convinced that an actor played Kim in recent meetings with China's prime
minister, Wen Jiabao, and the head of Hyundai Asan, the South Korean company responsible for
developing special economic and tourist complexes in North Korea.
After the June 2000 summit, says Shigemura, Kim "was bedridden with diabetes" and "cannot walk by
himself." He cites the names of three Japanese who claim to have met his look-alikes, including one
who was told flatly, "I am a double."
One of them, a magician named Princess Tenko, Shigemura describes as a "close friend" of Kim, saw
him more than once in visits to Pyongyang.
Fully self-possessed
Some analysts here, however, have trouble with Shigemura's analysis.
"There have been such rumors," says Kim Tae-woo, a veteran North Korea specialist at the Korea
Institute of Defense Analyses. "Dictators usually do that, but we don't know whether this is real or
fake."
The North Korean leader's preoccupation these days, he says, is arranging the succession of his
youngest son, Kim Jong-un, still in his late 20s.
Ryoo Kihl-jae, professor at the University of North Korean Studies, is dubious about such reports. Kim
Jong-il's brother-in-law, Jang Song-taek, appears to be the most powerful figure after the Dear Leader,
he says, "but his authority stems from Kim Jong-il" and two or three generals are vying for control.
For now, says Mr. Ryoo, Kim is "living well," and the reports of a double standing in for him are "just
imagination."
http://www.csmonitor.com
North Korea's Kim Jong Il reaffirms his leadership
A rare public appearance Thursday at the legislature, where he was unanimously reelected, came
days after a missile launch.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il (c.) clapped his hands at the 12th Supreme People's Assembly in
Pyongyang, North Korea. Mr. Kim was unanimously re-elected by Parliament on Thursday.
By Donald Kirk Correspondent / April 9, 2009
Seoul, South Korea – North Korea's leader Kim Jong Il appeared on video footage Thursday in a
performance clearly intended to demonstrate to his people and the world that he's well enough to rule
his country.
.Mr. Kim's appearance at the Supreme People’s Assembly, where he received a standing ovation and
was unanimously reelected to his country's most powerful position, was his first in public since he
reportedly suffered a stroke in August. It was seen as a climactic moment of triumph after a week
dominated by news of North Korea’s successful launch Sunday of a long-range missile.
Just how firmly Mr. Kim can hold on, however, is far from clear. Seated at a long table on stage, he
appeared frail and thinner than the pudgy image often photographed in previous years. Two or three
times he waved weakly as the delegates stood applauding and cheering.
Although North Korean state media have shown Kim on a record 44 visits in recent months to military
and industrial sites, he was not shown in motion on video until two days ago – and then only briefly
before broadcasts of a missile launch last Sunday.
A week of triumph
Throughout the week, North Korean broadcasts have repeatedly claimed that the launch successfully
put a satellite in orbit. The United States North American Aerospace Defense Command has said the
missile’s payload fell into the Pacific Ocean along with the second stage of the rocket.
Kim’s appearance came a day after thousands of North Koreans rallied in the heart of the capital,
shouting slogans of praise for his “glorious accomplishments” in launching the missile and the satellite.
The session of the Supreme People’s Assembly had the aura of elaborate ritual. After unanimously
rubber-stamping his reelection as chairman of the National Defense Commission, the center of power,
the members unanimously adopted a revision of the country’s Constitution. It’s not clear what changes
were made.
Hints at a successor
Kim is expected to preside over reshuffles of leadership posts in moves that suggest he’s
masterminding his succession. The post may well go to one of his three sons, probably the youngest,
who is expected to rule as a front for a coterie of generals.
His oldest son, Kim Jong-nam, reported to have led a playboy life in Macao, Japan, and China,
remarked in an interview with a Japanese TV network, “If I were the successor, you [wouldn't] see me
in Macao… My father is an important person, but I am not.”
http://www.csmonitor.com
Kim Jong II promotes brother-in-law, fuels succession talk
The 'dear leader' appeared before the Supreme People's Assembly Thursday, which rubber-stamped
his election to a third term.
By Donald Kirk Correspondent / April 10, 2009
SEOUL – North Korean leader Kim Jong Il’s three sons are not the only ones with strong enough
family connections to make them contenders for power as their father, weak and still ailing, casts
about for a successor.
.While Mr. Kim may hope to groom one of his sons to succeed him, he seems to be counting right now
on the economic acumen of his brother-in-law, Jang Song Taek, to buttress his regime. In one of his
first gestures after the Supreme People’s Assembly elected him unanimously to a third five-year term
as chairman of the National Defense Commission, the center of power in North Korea, Kim made Mr.
Jang a commission member.
North Korea's launch of a long-range Taepodong-2 missile on Sunday set the stage for the assembly
to rubberstamp Kim’s third term Thursday. Then, on Friday, came word of the reshuffle, seen as a sign
of Kim’s desire to impose greater control over the armed forces.
The defense commission grew from eight to 13 members with the addition of two people rewarded for
their role in the missile launch. “Overall,” a spokesman for South Korea’s unification ministry told
reporters in Seoul, “the power of the defense commission was strengthened.”
While China and Russia forestall a strong scolding for the launch by the UN Security Council,
however, Japan became the first country to retaliate decisively.
Japan renewed and strengthened economic sanctions already imposed on North Korea for its failure
to account fully for abduction of Japanese citizens in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Japan also
called for a tough UN resolution punishing the North for the missile test, while the US appeared ready
to settle for a statement from the Security Council president.
Against this background, Kim Jong Il apparently decided the timing was right for enhancing his regime.
Jang’s appointment to the defense commission gives him a formal power base commensurate with the
increased influence he’s had of late. Jang, married to Kim’s sister, Kim Kyong Hi, has been
photographed 24 times this year accompanying Kim on visits to military units and factories. That figure
compares with 14 last year and four the year before.
Jang’s star has risen since Kim was reported to have suffered a stroke in August, but Kim waited until
his own appearance at the opening session of the Supreme People’s Assembly to elevate him
formally. Jang already is a senior official in the Workers’ Party and also controls the powerful State
Security Agency, responsible for the pervasive system of internal espionage that has snared tens of
thousands of North Korean citizens suspected of disloyalty in some way to Kim’s rule.
The move confirms Jang’s standing as the second most powerful man in North Korea with far more
clout than the nominal head of state, Kim Yong Nam. The question now is whether he will want
eventually to take over from Kim Jong Il, or will settle for the role of mentor and power-behind-thethrone of one of Kim’s sons, probably the youngest.
Yonhap, South Korea’s news agency, suggested that Jang “may play a caretaking role for Kim’s
successor.”
None of Kim’s three sons, however, was named to the commission, and the steps for training any of
them for top leadership remain unclear. Although speculation focuses on the youngest, Kim Jong Un,
said Yonhap, “Seoul intelligence officials say there is no hard evidence to prove it.”
http://www.nytimes.com
NKoreans Mark Birthday of Leader's Son
January 8, 2010
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Koreans pledged allegiance to leader Kim Jong Il's youngest son
on Friday by marking his birthday, a news report said, amid speculation he is being groomed to take
over the nuclear-armed country.
North Korea also announced the designation of Kim Jong Un's birthday as a national holiday during a
meeting of senior officials in Pyongyang late Thursday, according to the Daily NK, a Seoul-based
online news outlet that focuses on North Korean affairs. It cited an unidentified North Korean resident.
Little has been confirmed about Kim Jong Un, including his age. He is believed to be in his 20s.
Kenji Fujimoto, a Japanese former sushi chef for Kim Jong Il, said Kim Jong Un was born on Jan. 8,
1983, according to Cheong Seong-chang, a senior analyst at the private Sejong Institute think tank
near Seoul.
North Korea's two major national holidays are the birthdays of the country's founder, Kim Il Sung, and
his son and current leader Kim Jong Il.
According to the online report, the birthday announcement delivered Thursday also urged North
Korea's 24 million people to help Kim Jong Un become the new leader.
Cheong said the reported designation of Kim Jong Un's birthday as a national holiday was aimed at
inducing loyalty among North Koreans, and that Kim Jong Il was likely speeding up the transfer of
power.
''The North will take steps to solidify Kim Jong Un's power base,'' Cheong said.
Kim Jong Il, who has three sons, has controlled the reclusive, impoverished nation with absolute
authority since he assumed power upon his father's death in 1994.
Speculation on who will lead North Korea has intensified since mid-2008 when Kim Jong Il reportedly
suffered a stroke. It has eased somewhat since he began making public appearances and held talks
last year with former President Bill Clinton in a landmark meeting that led to the release of two
detained U.S. journalists.
Kim's health is a focus of intense media attention because there could be a power struggle and
instability in the nuclear-armed nation if he were to die without naming a successor.
North Korean soldiers and workers pledged their loyalty to Kim Jong Un on Friday, the Daily NK
reported.
Open Radio for North Korea, a Seoul-based station specializing in North Korean news, also reported
that North Korea is believed to have held a senior officials' meeting in Pyongyang and lectures in other
parts of the country on Thursday to celebrate the younger Kim's birthday. It also cited an unidentified
North Korean resident.
The news outlets did not provide details of how they contacted their sources. Despite strict
government controls, some North Koreans are able to use mobile phones through Chinese
communication networks to the outside world.
The National Intelligence Service, South Korea's top spy agency, said it could not confirm the reports.
North Korea's state news agency did not mention the birthday.
http://www.reuters.com
Kim Jong-il's youngest son: N.Korea's next leader?
May 25, 2009
By Jonathan Thatcher
SEOUL, May 26 - Hidden from even the North Korean public, the youngest son of iron ruler Kim Jongil has for months been the focus of discussions about who might next lead the impoverished state.
Speculation over who will succeed to the world's first communist dynasty has grown after reports that
Kim, who took over from his father and the country's founder in the mid-1990s, suffered a stroke last
year.
Many analysts believe the North's internationally condemned nuclear test on Monday was partly aimed
at boosting the 67-year-old leader's standing at home to give him more leverage in anointing an heir -believed to be his third son, Kim Jong-un.
There is no confirmed photograph of the adult Kim Jong-un and his age is unclear. He was born either
in 1983 or early 1984.
There is a question too over whether his late mother, a Japanese-born professional dancer called Ko
Yong-hui, was Kim Jong-il's official wife or mistress -- an issue that might weigh on his legitimacy to
replace his father.
Even by intensely secretive North Korean standards, remarkably little is known about the son, whose
youth is also a potential problem in a society that adheres closely to the importance of seniority.
Kim Jong-il was very publicly named heir by his father, Kim Il-sung, but he has studiously avoided
repeating the process.
None of his three sons are mentioned in state media, much of whose efforts are focused on eulogising
the current leader and his father who died in 1994 and is now North Korea's eternal president.
Kim Jong-un is thought to be Swiss-educated and able to speak English and German.
In a book on his time as chef to the ruling household, Kenji Fujimori said that of the three sons, the
youngest Kim most resembles his father.
He is also reported to have a ruthless streak and the strongest leadership skills of the three. And,
perhaps more importantly, he is thought to be his father's favourite.
Park Syung-je, a Seoul-based analyst with the Asia Strategy Institute, said he believed Kim junior had
the backing of Jang Song-taek, effectively the country's number 2 leader.
Kim Jong-il in April promoted Jang, his brother-in-law, to the powerful National Defence Commission,
which many analysts took to be an attempt to establish a mechanism for the eventual transfer of
power, with Jang as kingmaker.
In a report on Monday, the Wall Street Journal said Washington had concluded Kim had initiated a
political transition in which Jang and the younger Kim were emerging as major players in a new power
structure.
South Korean media have speculated that Kim Jong-un may also suffer diabetes, something that is
thought to have long plagued his father.
http://www.faz.net
Nordkorea
Japan: Kim Jong-il regiert vom Krankenbett aus
Von Petra Kolonko, Peking
Ständiges Ärgernis für Pjöngjang: Nahe der nordkoreanischen Küste werfen südkoreanische
Aktivisten Flugblätter gegen Kim Jong-il ab
28. Oktober 2008
Den andauernden Spekulationen über den Gesundheitszustand von Machthaber Kim Jong-il im
Ausland begegnet Nordkorea auf seine Weise: Es verschärft die verbalen Attacken gegen das
demokratische Südkorea. Nordkorea habe die Fähigkeit, mit einem Erstschlag den Süden in Schutt
und Asche zu legen, zitierte die nordkoreanische Nachrichtenagentur KCNA am Dienstag das Militär
des kommunistischen Nordens. Wieder einmal droht der Norden damit, alle Beziehungen zum Süden
abzubrechen.
Anlass für die neuen Attacken gegen Seoul und seine von Nordkorea als „Marionetten“ der
Amerikaner beschimpfte Regierung ist nordkoreanischer Zorn über antikommunistische Pamphlete
aus dem Süden. Südkoreanische Gruppen schicken seit Jahren Flugblätter mit Luftballons über die
Grenze, diesmal jedoch scheinen die Pamphlete den Norden besonders zu ärgern, da sie
Informationen über Kim Jong-il verbreiten.
Nordkorea droht mit Ausweisung aus „Versöhnungsprojekten“
Nordkorea hat jetzt gedroht, wenn die südkoreanische Regierung die Verteilung von Flugblättern
durch die Aktivisten nicht unterbinde, werde es die südkoreanische Industriezone in Nordkorea
stilllegen. Bereits am Montag hatte Nordkorea bei einem Zusammentreffen von Offizieren beider
Seiten an der Grenze angedroht, es werde alle Südkoreaner ausweisen, die in den beiden
„Versöhnungs“-Projekten – der Industriezone von Kaesong und der Tourismus-Zone von Kumggang –
arbeiten. Nord- und Südkorea hatten sich im Jahr 2004 darauf geeinigt, gegenseitige PropagandaAttacken wie Lautsprecherdurchsagen an der Grenze und Radioübertragungen einzustellen. Die
südkoreanische Regierung beruft sich jetzt auf das Recht der freien Rede, das ihr verbiete, die
Aktionen von privaten Gruppen einzustellen.
Die Gereiztheit auf Seiten des Nordens dürfte noch durch die Nachricht verstärkt worden sein, dass
ein nordkoreanischer Grenzsoldat nach Südkorea übergelaufen ist. Der Soldat hat nach Berichten aus
Seoul an der schwer befestigten innerkoreanischen Grenze einen südkoreanischen Wachposten
angesprochen und um Asyl in Südkorea gebeten. Es ist schon das zweite Mal in diesem Jahr, dass
ein Soldat an der Grenze zu Südkorea überläuft.
Meldungen über Genesung nach Schlagsanfall
Der japanische Ministerpräsident Aso gab am Dienstag unter Berufung auf
Geheimdienstinformationen bekannt, dass der nordkoreanische Machthaber Kim Jong-il noch
bettlägerig sei, dass er aber die Regierungsgeschäfte weiterhin in der Hand habe. Auch der
südkoreanische Geheimdienst teilte Parlamentariern in Seoul mit, Kim Jong-il sei auf dem Weg der
Besserung.
Archivfoto des "geliebten Führers", veröffentlicht 2003
Nach Berichten westlicher Geheimdienste soll Kim Jong-il im August einen Schlaganfall erlitten haben.
Der Machthaber ist seit Wochen nicht in der Öffentlichkeit gesehen worden. Im September hatte er
nicht wie üblich einer Parade beigewohnt. Nordkorea hatte die neuerlichen Gerüchte über Kim Jong-ils
Gesundheitszustand in der vergangenen Woche zurückgewiesen. Die nordkoreanische
Nachrichtenagentur berichtete, der „Geliebte Führer“ habe sich am 4. Oktober ein Fußballspiel
angeschaut und am 11. Oktober eine Militäreinheit besucht.
http://www.faz.net
Rätsel um Diktator Kim Jong-il
Für alle Fälle steht das Militär bereit
Von Petra Kolonko
Nordkoreas Machthaber, der „Geliebte Führer” Kim Jong-il, gibt wieder Rätsel auf
13. September 2008
Nordkoreas Machthaber, der „Geliebte Führer“ Kim Jong-il, gibt wieder Rätsel auf. Geheimdienste
wollen wissen, dass er einen Schlaganfall erlitten hat. Er sei auf dem Weg der Besserung, sagen die
einen, die anderen behaupten, er sei behindert. Er sei schon lange tot, sagen die ganz
Phantasievollen. Die Nüchternen wiederum merken an, dass es nur eine Laune war, die den
Machthaber dazu veranlasste, die Feierlichkeiten zum 60. Jahrestag der Gründung Nordkoreas zu
verpassen.
66 Jahre ist Kim alt, und die Gerüchte über eine ernsthafte Erkrankung haben in Erinnerung gerufen,
dass in Nordasien ein Pulverfass explodieren kann. Seit eine Einigung über den Abbau von
Nordkoreas Atomprogramm erreicht worden war, hatte sich die Lage kurzfristig entspannt. Doch nun
lassen die Regierungen in der Region und in Washington wieder Krisenszenarien hervorziehen und
überarbeiten. Nordkorea-Astrologen versuchen verzweifelt, Informationen zu sammeln und Schlüsse
aus spärlichen Daten und Berichten zu ziehen.
Der älteste Sohn hat sich selbst disqualifiziert
Wenn Kim Jong-il durch einen Schlaganfall behindert bliebe oder wenn er gar sterben sollte, droht in
Nordkorea ein Machtvakuum zu entstehen, denn bislang hat Kim Jong-il es versäumt, öffentlich einen
Nachfolger zu benennen und auf sein Amt vorzubereiten. Damit folgte Kim nicht wie bislang in allen
Dingen dem Vorbild seines Vaters. Kim Il-sung hatte seinen Sohn schon zu Lebzeiten in die Politik
eingeführt und auf die Nachfolge vorbereitet.
Dass Kim Jong-il, der Nordkorea seit 1994 unangefochten führt, es gänzlich versäumt haben könnte,
über seine Nachfolge nachzudenken, ist kaum anzunehmen. Unwahrscheinlich ist auch, dass Kim
seine Nachfolgeregelung seinen Genossen überlassen hat. Die Dynastie Kim hat sich zur
Personifikation Nordkoreas gemacht, sie wird diese Machtstellung nicht einfach aufgeben wollen. Und
vor allem wird sie auch verhindern wollen, dass sie eines Tages einmal für die Verbrechen, die sie am
nordkoreanischen Volk begangen hat, zur Verantwortung gezogen wird.
Vor allem chinesische Beobachter glauben, dass Kim Jong-il die Dynastie fortsetzen will, auch wenn
er offiziell noch keinem seiner drei Söhne eine wichtige Rolle in der Nomenklatura übertragen hat. Der
älteste Sohn, Kim Yong-nam, hat sich offensichtlich selbst disqualifiziert, als er 2001 für peinliche
Schlagzeilen sorgte. Er wurde in Japan aufgegriffen, als er mit einem falschen Pass einreiste, um
Disneyland zu besuchen. Danach lebte der heute 37 Jahre alte Kim Yong-nam nicht mehr in
Nordkorea, sondern im chinesischen Spielerparadies Macao, wo er aber möglicherweise auch mit
Nordkoreas Geldgeschäften dort betraut war. Er soll vor einem Jahr nach Nordkorea zurückgekehrt
sein.
Kim Yong-nam allenfalls ein Übergangskandidat
Wahrscheinlicher Kandidat für die dynastische Nachfolge ist der erst 26 Jahre alte Kim Jong-chol, der
in der Schweiz in die Schule gegangen ist und im Jahr 2006 bei einem Rock-Konzert in Deutschland
gesichtet wurde. Er soll nach chinesischen Berichten im vergangenen Jahr in ein Organisationsbüro
der Partei berufen worden sein. In China gab es Berichte, nach denen er mit dem chinesischen
Staatspräsidenten Hu Jintao zusammentreffen durfte, als dieser 2005 Nordkorea besuchte. Dies
deutet darauf hin, dass er für eine politische Rolle vorgesehen ist. Mit seinen 26 Jahren ist er aber
derzeit noch zu jung, um die Führung des Apparates und des Landes zu übernehmen. Auch der dritte
Sohn, Kim Jong-eun, ist mit 25 zu jung und auf der politischen Bühne noch nicht in Erscheinung
getreten.
Ein junger Kim ohne eigene Hausmacht und Wurzeln im Apparat könnte sich kaum lange an der
Macht halten. Wenn Kims Söhne, er soll angeblich noch eine ganze Reihe unehelicher Kinder haben,
nicht für die Nachfolge bereitstehen, müssten nach einem Abtreten oder dem Tod von Kim Jong-il die
stärksten Personen aus der derzeitigen Führungsriege die Macht übernehmen. Über die ist nicht viel
bekannt. Die derzeitige Nummer zwei, Kim Yong-nam, ist mit 80 Jahren zu alt und wäre allenfalls ein
Übergangskandidat.
Das Militär ist die am besten funktionierende Organisation im Land
In jedem Fall steht das Militär bereit, um mehr oder weniger offen die Macht zu übernehmen. Kim
Jong-il ist oberster Befehlshaber, das Militär ist ihm ergeben, und die Streitkräfte sind dank der Politik
der Bevorzugung des Militärs die am besten funktionierende Organisation im Land. Das Militär könnte
aus dem Hintergrund mit einer nominellen zivilen Führung weiter bestimmen oder aber auch als Junta
direkt die Macht übernehmen.
Wenn Nordkorea auch derzeit stabil erscheint und die Gesellschaft dank einer Abschottung von der
Außenwelt, weitreichender ideologischer Indoktrinierung und strikter staatlicher Kontrolle trotz
Hungers und wirtschaftlicher Misere keine Zeichen von Unruhen oder Widerstand gibt, so könnte doch
ein Vakuum oder Unruhe an der Spitze auch weiter unten etwas bewegen. Schon andere
sozialistische Regime sind unerwartet schnell zusammengebrochen. Nordkoreas Nachbarn müssen
sich daher auch wieder mit der Möglichkeit eines Zusammenbruchs des Regimes befassen.
Einen Zusammenbruch verhindern
Ein Kollaps der Gewaltherrschaft, die die nordkoreanische Bevölkerung von ihrem Joch befreien
könnte, ist bei den Nachbarn gefürchtet. Selbst Südkorea, das offiziell noch immer von der
Wiedervereinigung träumt, fürchtet die Kosten sowie die politischen und sozialen Folgen, wenn der
Süden den verarmten Norden zu übernehmen hätte. Auch China möchte einen Zusammenbruch
verhindern. Ein Flüchtlingsstrom in die Volksrepublik wäre zu befürchten. Und im Fall einer
Wiedervereinigung sähe China ein mit Amerika alliiertes Korea an seiner Grenze, eine Vorstellung, die
in Peking nicht behagt.
Dass ein potentiell instabiles und unberechenbares Nordkorea über Atomwaffen verfügt, ist ein
Albtraum aller. Eine Beendigung von Nordkoreas Atomprogramm wird dadurch dringender denn je.
Doch Entscheidungen darüber könnten verzögert werden, wenn es stimmt, dass Kim Jong-il derzeit
nicht in der Lage ist, Direktiven zu geben. Vielleicht schlägt Kim aber der Welt wieder nur ein
Schnippchen und wartet in Ruhe die Präsidentenwahl in den Vereinigten Staaten ab, um dann der
neuen amerikanischen Regierung neue Forderungen präsentieren zu können.
http://www.spiegel.de
28. Oktober 2008
Kim Jong Il soll sich von Schlaganfall erholt haben
Nordkoreas Staatschef Kim Jong Il hat sich japanischen Angaben zufolge von seinem Schlaganfall
erholt. Sein Gesundheitszustand sei aber nach wie vor "nicht sehr gut", sagte Japans Regierungschef
Taro Aso.
Tokio - Offizielle Stellungnahmen Nordkoreas gibt es nicht, stattdessen kursieren
Geheimdienstinformationen mehrerer Länder über den Gesundheitszustand von Nordkoreas
Staatschef Kim Jong Il. Japanischen Angaben zufolge befindet sich der Machthaber
höchstwahrscheinlich im Krankenhaus. "Sein Gesundheitszustand ist nicht sehr gut", sagte Japans
Regierungschef Taro Aso am Dienstag vor dem Parlament in Tokio.
Über seinen Gesundheitszustand wird spekuliert: Nordkoreas Machthaber Kim Jong Il
Kim Jong Il sei allerdings noch in der Lage, Entscheidungen zu treffen. Dem nordkoreanischen
Staatschef gehe es gut genug, um seine täglichen Pflichten zu erfüllen, sagte Aso unter Berufung auf
Informationen des japanischen Geheimdienstes.
Auch die südkoreanische Regierung teilte vergangene Woche mit, sie gehe davon aus, dass Kim
Jong Il in Nordkorea weiterhin die Zügel fest in der Hand hält.
Kim Jong Il ist seit Wochen von der Bildfläche verschwunden und war Anfang September unter
anderem nicht zur Parade anlässlich des Nationalfeiertags in Nordkorea erschienen. Südkoreanischen
Angaben zufolge hatte sich der Staatschef nach einem Schlaganfall einer Gehirnoperation
unterziehen müssen. Nordkorea weist die Spekulationen um den Gesundheitszustand von Kim als
Propaganda zurück.
Die nordkoreanische Armee drohte am Dienstag Südkorea mit einem zerstörerischen Angriff. Die
Armee warf dem "Marionettensystem" in Seoul vor, einen Präventivschlag vorzubereiten. Am Montag
hatte eine politische Gruppe aus Südkorea mit Zehntausenden über Nordkorea abgeworfenen
Flugblättern zum Sturz Kim Jong Ils aufgerufen.
http://www.sueddeutsche.de
Diktator Kim Jong Il
Gutes aus Nordkorea
08.01.2009
Christoph Neidhart
Nordkoreas Diktator Kim Jong Il verachtet die Menschen und ihre Rechte, er betreibt eine Politik der
Erpressung und der Täuschung. Dennoch ist seine Genesung eine gute Nachricht.
Kim Jong Il (rechts): Diktator verdrängt noch konservativere Kommunisten wieder von der Macht.
Foto: Reuters
Nordkorea wählt. Mit Demokratie hat das nichts zu tun, und trotzdem handelt es sich um eine gute
Nachricht. Diktaturen sind dann am gefährlichsten, wenn sie instabil sind. Sie sind besonders instabil,
wenn der Diktator zu schwach ist, alle Fäden in der Hand zu halten.
Das war beim nordkoreanischen Herrscher Kim Jong Il offensichtlich im Herbst der Fall. Jetzt scheint
er wieder so weit stabilisiert, dass er in der Obersten Volksversammlung wird auftreten können, wenn
sie neu zusammengesetzt ist.
Kim Jong Il ist gewiss kein Wunschpartner Seouls, Washingtons und Pekings. Er verachtet die
Menschen und ihre Rechte, er betreibt eine Politik der Erpressung und der Täuschung.
Furcht vor dem Markt
Gleichwohl dürfte Kim derzeit das geringste mögliche Übel in Pjöngjang sein. Immerhin lässt er seine
Propagandisten erklären, der Norden strebe die Denuklearisierung der koreanischen Halbinsel an.
Die Sechsergespräche in Peking hat er immer wieder erschüttert, aber nie platzen lassen. Den
Hardlinern hingegen sollen diese Gespräche viel zu schnell gegangen sein. Sie fürchten die freien
Märkte und sogar gezinkte Wahlen.
Während seiner durch den Schlaganfall bedingten Abwesenheit verschärften sie deshalb den Kurs vor
allem gegen Seoul, der wichtigsten Geldquelle des Nordens.
Nordkoreas Wahl-Ankündigung zeugt also von wiedergewonnener Stabilität. Die ist wichtig, solange
das Land bis an die Zähne bewaffnet ist und womöglich über Atomwaffen verfügt.
Die Hardliner dürften etwas Boden verloren haben. So belegen die Fragmente des Richtungsstreits,
dass es sogar in Nordkoreas Führung einen gewissen Meinungspluralismus gibt.
Eine vorerst kleine, aber gute Nachricht für Korea.
http://www.sueddeutsche.de
Nordkoreas Staatschef
Wie Kim Il Sung auf dem OP-Tisch lag
12.12.2008
Ein französischer Arzt bestätigt Gerüchte, wonach Nordkoreas Staatschef Kim Jong Il einen
Schlaganfall erlitt. Jüngst veröffentlichte Fotos des Diktators schätzt er als "echt" ein.
Die jüngst veröffentlichten Fotos des nordkoreanischen Staatschefs machen den Anschein, "aktuell
und echt" zu sein, sagt ein französischer Arzt. Foto: dpa
Ein französischer Facharzt hat Gerüchte bestätigt, wonach der nordkoreanische Staatschef Kim Jong
Il einen Schlaganfall erlitten hat. Kim sei allerdings nicht operiert worden, sagte der Neurochirurg
François-Xavier Roux der Tageszeitung Le Figaro. "Mittlerweile geht es ihm besser."
Die jüngst veröffentlichten Fotos des nordkoreanischen Präsidenten machten den Anschein, "aktuell
und echt" zu sein. Mehr könne er nicht sagen, weil er an die ärztliche Schweigepflicht und ein
Staatsgeheimnis gebunden sei, sagte Roux, ein Freund des französischen Außenministers Bernard
Kouchner und wie dieser ein früheres Mitglied von Ärzte ohne Grenzen.
In dem Bericht sprachen mehrere französische Ärzte darüber, wie sie heimlich bekannte
Persönlichkeiten des kommunistisch regierten Staates behandelt hätten.
Den Kontakt habe stets der Vertreter Nordkoreas bei den Vereinten Nationen in Genf hergestellt,
Tchoe Il. Anfang der neunziger Jahre habe Tchoe sich an Herzspezialisten aus Lyon gewandt,
nachdem er sich in der Schweiz eine Abfuhr eingehandelt habe, berichtete ein Arzt, der nicht
namentlich genannt werden wollte. Der Nordkoreaner habe ihm das EKG eines Patienten gezeigt und
gesagt, dass es sich um eine bekannte "Persönlichkeit" handele, die einen Herzschrittmacher
brauche.
Ein Chirurg, ein Narkosearzt und eine Krankenschwester seien daraufhin nach Pjöngjang gereist, wo
sie zunächst mehrere Militärs operiert hätten. Eines Tages habe dann ein älterer Mann vor ihnen auf
dem Operationstisch gelegen, der eine Brille mit gesprungenen Gläser aufgehabt habe, damit er nicht
zu erkennen war. Erst nach der Rückkehr in Frankreich hätten die Ärzte dann sicher gewusst, dass es
sich um den Staatsgründer Kim Il Sung gehandelt habe, den Vater des jetzigen Machthabers, der
einen Herzinfarkt erlitten hatte.
Der Neurochirurg Roux hatte sich Ende Oktober gegen Berichte verwahrt, wonach er zu Kims
Behandlung nach Nordkorea gereist sein soll. Er wisse über den gesundheitlichen Zustand des
Präsidenten nicht mehr, als in der Zeitung zu lesen sei, sagte Roux seinerzeit.
Nordkorea hatte vor gut zwei Wochen erneut Fotos des Staatschefs veröffentlicht, auf denen der 66Jährige beim Besuch zweier Fabriken zu sehen war. Südkorea und die Vereinigten Staaten zweifelten
die Aktualität der Bilder allerdings an. Kim war seit Monaten nicht mehr in der Öffentlichkeit zu sehen.
Gerüchte über einen Schlaganfall wies der kommunistische Staat stets als Propaganda zurück.
http://www.welt.de
Kim Jong-il bestimmt jüngsten Sohn als Nachfolger
2. Juni 2009
Der nordkoreanische Diktator Kim Jong-il soll über seine Nachfolge entschieden haben:
Medienberichten zufolge ließ er bereits vor einer Woche die wichtigsten Institutionen des Landes eine
Treuerkläung auf seinen jüngsten Sohn Kim Jong-un ablegen. Der neue "Thronfolger" ist selbst den
Nordkoreanern kaum bekannt.
Das Abbild von Nordkoreas Diktator Kim Jong-il und ein Kinderfoto seines jüngsten Sohn Kim Jong-un
auf dem Protest-Plakat eines südkoreanischen Demonstranten. Jong-il soll den inzwischen 25 oder 26
Jahre alten Jong-un zu seinem Nachfolger erkoren haben.
Nordkoreas Machthaber Kim Jong-il hat Medienberichten zufolge unmittelbar nach dem international
verurteilten Atomtest des Landes seinen jüngsten Sohn als künftigen Nachfolger bestimmt. Kim habe
die wichtigsten Institutionen des Landes wie auch die Auslandsvertretungen angewiesen, eine
Treueerklärung auf seinen Sohn Kim Jong-un abzugeben, berichteten südkoreanische Zeitungen am
Dienstag.
Nordkorea steht kurz vor weiterem Raketenstart Die offizielle Mitteilung an die nordkreanische
Volksarmee, das Präsidium der Obersten Volksversammlung und das Kabinett sei kurz nach dem
Atomtest vom 25. Mai erfolgt, berichtete die nationale südkoreanische Nachrichtenagentur Yonhap
unter Berufung auf informierte Kreise.
Der 25 oder 26 Jahre alte Kim Jong-un gilt im Ausland bereits seit längerem als Favorit Kims für die
Machtnachfolge in dem weitgehend abgeschotteten Land. Er ist der jüngste von drei bekannten
Söhnen Kims. Der 67-Jährige war im vergangenen Monat wochenlang von der öffentlichen Bildfläche
verschwunden. Er soll an den Folgen eines Schlaganfalls leiden.
Zuletzt nahm er Mitte April als Leiter an der konstituierenden Sitzung des neuen Parlaments teil, wo er
erneut zum Vorsitzenden des Nationalen Verteidigungsausschusses und damit zum mächtigsten
Mann in dem abgeschotteten kommunistischen Staat gewählt wurde. Kim wirkte bei seinem ersten
größeren Auftritt seit August 2008 gealtert und dünner als noch ein Jahr zuvor.
Jong-un ist selbst den Nordkoreanern kaum bekannt. Der 26-Jährige ist der Sohn Kims mit einer 2004
verstorbenen ehemaligen Tänzerin. Er hat Medienberichten zufolge unter einem Pseudonym bis 1998
die International School of Berne besucht. Die Schweizer Wochenzeitung „L'Hebdo“ berichtete Anfang
des Jahres unter Berufung unter anderem auf Mitschüler Kims, dieser habe dort Englisch, Deutsch
und Französisch studiert. Der Nordkoreaner sei schüchtern und introvertiert gewesen und habe sich
vor allem für Skifahren und Basketball interessiert. Kim sei ein bescheidener Schüler und freundlich
gegenüber den Kindern von US-Diplomaten gewesen, erklärte ein ehemaliger Schulleiter.
Ansonsten ist wenig über den jungen Kim bekannt. Er sehe seinem Vater sehr ähnlich und verhalte
sich wie der 67-Jährige, erklärte ein langjähriger japanischer Koch des Staatschefs in Pjöngjang 2003
in seinen Memoiren. Nach Ansicht der meisten Experten hat der 26-Jährige die größten Chancen,
dem „lieben Führer“ nachzufolgen. Der älteste Sohn Kims, der 38-jährige Jong Nam, galt lange als
Favorit – bis er 2001 versuchte, mit einem gefälschten Pass nach Japan einzureisen, wo er angeblich
Disneyland in Tokio besuchen wollte.
http://www.fr-online.de
Kims Schicksal lässt Seoul nicht kalt
VON BRIGITTE SPITZ, 16.09.2008
Jede Menge Zirkus aus Nordkorea. Damit sind nicht nur jene Akrobaten aus Pjöngjang gemeint, die
gerade in Deutschland auftreten. Zurzeit ist es vor allem das Regime der Demokratischen
Volksrepublik Korea, das die Blicke auf sich zieht. Weil man Machthaber Kim Jong Il seit Wochen
nicht gesehen hat, wird über seine Gesundheit spekuliert. Und damit auch über die Zukunft des
abgeschotteten Landes, das seinen 23 Millionen Menschen immer noch einen sozialistischen Himmel
verspricht und wohl den meisten die Hölle auf Erden bietet. Lebt Kim Jong Il noch oder umweht ihn
bereits ein Hauch von Formaldehyd - wie Mao, Lenin oder Ho Chi Minh, die in ihren Mausoleen als
kommunistische Ikonen konserviert wurden?
Im Süden der koreanischen Halbinsel wird besonders gebannt nach Pjöngjang geschaut, denn Seoul
weiß, dass die Zukunft Südkoreas mit dem Schicksal des exzentrischen Führers aus dem Norden eng
verknüpft ist. Dass die ohnehin turbulenten Sechs-Parteien-Gespräche über die atomare Abrüstung
Nordkoreas durch Kim Jong Ils mutmaßliche Erkrankung jetzt nicht vorankommen werden, gilt als das
geringste Übel. Der noch im Juni bejubelte Abrüstungsprozess hatte bereits Rückschläge erlitten.
Keine acht Wochen nach der Sprengung des Kühlturms der Yongbyon-Atomanlage hatte Nordkorea
damit gedroht, seinen Reaktor wieder aufzubauen, weil die USA das Land nicht von der Terror-Liste
gestrichen hatten. Experten werteten die Erpressung als Zeichen für die schwache
Verhandlungsposition Pjöngjangs. Das Regime war unter Druck geraten. In Südkorea hatte sich der
seit Februar amtierende konservative Präsident Lee Myung Bak von der Sonnenschein-Politik der
Vorgänger distanziert.
Lee kündigte an, er werde in den Beziehungen zum Norden mehr Realismus walten lassen, und
verknüpfte Hilfen mit echten Fortschritten etwa bei Reisen in den Norden. Und er sprach ausdrücklich
die "sehr ernste Lage" der Menschenrechte in Nordkorea an - Töne, die in der Vergangenheit mit Blick
auf das Atomwaffenpotenzial Pjöngjangs offiziell nur leise zu hören waren. Menschenrechtsexperten
wie Professor Kim Byeong-ro von der Nationaluniversität in Seoul loben die Kurskorrektur angesichts
von Gulags für schätzungsweise 200 000 Menschen, öffentlichen Hinrichtungen und der totalen
Überwachung der Nordkoreaner. Sie fordern für Nordkorea eine Art Helsinki-Prozess, der im OstWest-Konflikt die wirtschaftliche Kooperation und Fortschritte bei Menschenrechten verknüpft hatte.
Derzeit aber ist für solche Visionen kaum Raum. Die Regierung in Seoul rechnet im schlimmsten Fall
mit dem Zusammenbruch des maroden Staats im Norden. Das wäre ein Schreckensszenario für die
Südkoreaner, die die deutsche Wiedervereinigung genau studiert haben. Sie wissen: das war ein
Kinderspiel im Vergleich zu dem, was ihnen bevorstünde, wenn sie die Masse der verarmten
Nordkoreaner auffangen müssten.
Vielleicht entpuppt sich das Verschwinden Kims ja auch als Finte, die darauf abzielt, die
selbsternannte "Sonne des einundzwanzigsten Jahrhunderts" später umso strahlender scheinen
lassen. Doch derzeit schaut alles gebannt auf die dürre Nachrichtenlage aus Pjöngjang - um die eine
Meldung bloß nicht zu verpassen, die Geschichte machen könnte.
http://www.fr-online.de
Nordkorea: Kim ist dann mal weg
VON BERNHARD BARTSCH, 11.09.2008
Wo steckt Kim Jong Il? Nachdem der Diktator am Montag den Feierlichkeiten zum 60.
Gründungsjubiläum der Demokratischen Volksrepublik Korea fernblieb, rätselt die Welt über den
Zustand des Mannes, der sein Land seit Jahrzehnten in Isolation und Armut hält. Südkoreas
Geheimdienst will erfahren haben, der 66-Jährige sei schwer erkrankt - oder schon tot.
"Es ist sicher, dass Kim Jong Il krank ist", zitierte die südkoreanische Nachrichtenagentur Yonhap
einen hohen Regierungsbeamten in Seoul. Am 22. August soll Kim einen schweren Schlaganfall
erlitten haben. Angeblich leidet er schon lange an Herzschwäche und Diabetes, befördert durch seine
Vorliebe für opulente Menüs und guten Wein. Chinas Regierung, Nordkoreas engste Verbündete, soll
Kim ein Team von fünf Ärzten geschickt haben, doch sie verliert über seinen Zustand keine Silbe.
Die Kronprinzen
Mindestens vier Kinder mit drei Frauen hat Kim Jong Il, der die Staatsführung 1994 von Vater Kim Il
Sung erbte.
Tochter Sol Song (34 Jahre alt) spielt wohl keine politische Rolle.
Jong Nam, der Älteste (37 Jahre), galt als Favorit - bis er 2001 beim Versuch erwischt wurde, mit
einem falschen dominikanischen Pass nach Japan in einen Disney-Park zu reisen.
Jong Chol, 27 Jahre, soll in einem Schweizer Internat gelernt und einen hohen Parteiposten erhalten
haben.
Jong Un, 25 Jahre, ist Berichten zufolge Kims Liebling. Er soll seinem Vater sehr ähnlich sein. Es
wäre nicht das erste Mal, dass Kim aus der Öffentlichkeit verschwindet. Ein Bluff wäre ihm
zuzutrauen: Mit einer fingierten Krankheit könnte er seine Gegner aus der Deckung zu locken
versuchen oder sich vor vermeintlichen Attentatsplänen schützen wollen.
Pjöngjang dementiert Berichte über eine Krankheit des "Geliebten Führers". Es gebe "kein Problem",
sagte Kim Yong Nam, formal Nordkoreas Staatsoberhaupt, der japanischen Nachrichtenagentur
Kyodo. "Wir betrachten solche Berichte nicht nur als wertlos, sondern als Verschwörung." Doch selbst
Nordkoreas Nachrichtenagentur lässt durchblicken, dass der sonst omnipräsente Führer abgetaucht
ist: Offiziellen Meldungen zufolge nahmen Beamte die Geschenke und Glückwünsche zum Jahrestag
entgegen. Den 50. und den 55. Gründungstag hatte Kim noch begangen, als seien sie seine eigenen
Geburtstage.
Zuletzt war Kim Anfang August in einer Kaserne aufgetreten, hatte das Militär aufgefordert, sich selbst
zu versorgen und "eine Nebenwirtschaft zu entwickeln, um den Soldaten bessere Lebensbedingungen
zu verschaffen".
Ein Ende der Ära Kim könnte auch die gewaltsamen Abschottung der 23 Millionen Nordkoreaner von
der Welt beenden. Doch was nach dem exzentrischen Führer kommt, ist so ungewiss wie sein
Zustand. Südkoreas Präsident Lee Myung Bak ließ schon mal über Konsequenzen beraten.
Seoul erwartet, dass auf eine Phase der Handlungsunfähigkeit nach Kims Tod ein bitterer
Nachfolgekampf zwischen den drei Söhnen, den Militärs und der Parteielite folgen würde. Das
Machtvakuum könnte zum Zusammenbruch des maroden Staates führen. Die Südkoreaner fürchten,
den Nachbarn auffangen zu müssen - was hunderte Milliarden Dollar kosten würde.
http://www.atimes.com
Sep 13, 2008
Korea: 'Dear Leader, get well soon'
By Donald Kirk
SEOUL - Call him merciless, a dictator, a Stalinist or any name you want, but North Korean Dear
Leader Kim Jong-il's enemies now want him safely in control after suffering an apparently debilitating
stroke or cerebral hemorrhage four weeks ago.
That's because no one has any solid clue what would happen to North Korea, to the Korean
Peninsula, or to northeast Asia if Kim were to die or be unable to govern and a power vacuum were to
ensue after 63 years of harsh one-man rule first by Kim's father, Kim Il-sung, and then by the Dear
Leader, carefully groomed to take over after his father's death in 1994.
Just about any scenario is conceivable, and any configuration in the power structure imaginable, as
analysts try to assess the possible impact of the loss of a man whom US President George W Bush
was wont to revile as "a pygmy", a "tyrant", and probably a few other choice names.
If Kim is not bombarded with get-well or at least stay-alive wishes from his enemies, that may only be
because North Korean officials stoutly deny there's anything wrong with the man. Diplomats at North
Korea's United Nations mission have hung up on inquiring calls if they answer the phone at all, and
Kim Yong-nam, the North's second-ranking leader as chairman of the presidium of the Supreme
People's Assembly, has been quoted as saying there's "no problem".
Analysts say Kim Jong-il's non-appearance at a parade on Tuesday marking the 60th anniversary of
the formal founding of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea three years after Kim Il-sung
returned from near the Siberian city of Khabarovsk aboard a Soviet merchant ship may not in itself be
terribly significant; he often fails to show up at huge events.
South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) seems certain, however, that Kim is partially
paralyzed after an operation by Chinese doctors but reasonably alert - information that appears to
have come from NIS sources in Beijing.
The latest word from one official, quoted by South Korea's Yonhap news agency, is that "Kim can
brush his teeth without help" - though the government "is still closely watching Kim's health and other
situations in North Korea in anticipation of an emergency there".
The problem is, if dealing with North Korea now seems difficult, things could get a lot worse, in the
view of analysts in Seoul and in Washington, if Kim Jong-il were to leave the scene. All of Kim's three
sons at one time or another have been mentioned as possibilities, but none of them has had anything
remotely like the long apprenticeship that Kim had to serve in the government, the party and, finally,
the armed forces before his father's death.
When Kim Il-sung died of a heart attack in July 1994, Kim Jong-il, now 66 (then 52) was already
commander of the armed forces, the center of power. He assumed the title of chairman of the national
defense commission three years later and, when he's not called "Dear Leader" or "Great Leader", is
formally addressed as "chairman" in deference to his authority over the military structure in a system
dominated by his policy of songun (military first). He also holds the title of general secretary of the
Workers' Party.
By contrast, 27-year-old Kim Jong-chol, the second son, was recently put in charge of the Department
of Propaganda and Agitation of the Workers' Party - a responsible post but nowhere near the level
from which a future leader would ordinarily vault to the highest position of power.
The first son, Kim Jong-nam, 37, may have disqualified himself after he was stopped at Japan's Narita
Airport seven years ago carrying a Dominican passport and explaining he wanted to take his family to
Tokyo Disneyland - not exactly the preferred vacation spot for a future North Korean leader. After
living for a spell in the gambling enclave of Macau, however, Jong-nam recently has returned to
Pyongyang, suggesting his father may have plans for him.
Third son Kim Jong-un, 24, was assumed to be too young, but his physical resemblance to his father
is seen as giving him an outside chance, especially since middle brother Jong-chol is rumored to
appear "effeminate", a possible euphemism for homosexual.
The fear now is that the generals whom Kim has assiduously coddled, rewarded, intimidated, bullied
and punished would vie with one another to take over if their Dear Leader were unable to carry on.
Some observers, with little if any real evidence, already believe a coterie of generals is in power in his
name - and would love to rule behind the cover of any one of his sons as a front man for their own
maneuvering and greater ambitions.
"Clearly there would be a lot of debate about policy," said Bruce Klinger, a former US Central
Intelligence Agency official and now analyst with the Heritage Foundation in Washington. Kim's
passing "would resurrect speculation about factions", he believes.
The view among defense analysts and officials in Seoul is that some military leaders in the North
advocate a considerably harder line than that pursued under Kim Jong-il. They're said to disfavor the
North's agreement to get rid of its nuclear facilities and are behind the North's stonewalling on the
protocol demanded by Washington for verification as a precondition for removal of North Korea from
the US list of state sponsors of terrorism.
Kim Jong-il, however, may not want to keep up the tough front despite the move to restart the
development of the nuclear program at the Yongbyon complex. Kim Yong-nam, while dismissing
reports of the leader's illness, also held out the hope of overcoming differences over the protocol - a
view that prompted the White House to say, "We can hopefully continue to work to bring them into
compliance with what they agreed to do."
Without the Dear Leader's steadying influence, all bets for the future are off. Analysts say a power
struggle in Pyongyang could spark civil war in which hundreds of thousands of refugees would make
for China and Russia to the north or into South Korea.
Another possibility is that the military clique that controls the country's 1.1 million troops could increase
its grip, strengthen dictatorial rule and get even tougher with South Korea as well as the US and
Japan.
It is against the background of such concerns that South Korea's conservative President Lee Myungbak has called emergency meetings to discuss what to do in case of a power shift.
These meetings have assumed urgency since North Korean rhetoric has blasted Lee as a "traitor" and
refused to go on with North-South dialogue until he endorses the joint communiques that emerged
from the June 2000 and October 2007 North-South summits.
Lee has not repudiated the statements but has left no doubt of what he thinks of his two presidential
predecessors, Kim Dae-jung, who won the Nobel Peace Prize after the 2000 summit with Kim Jong-il,
and Roh Moo-hyun, who carried out Kim Dae-jung's policy of reconciliation.
It may be because of worries over what's happening in Pyongyang that Lee is staying in the Blue
House, the center of presidential power, over the Chusok holidays beginning this weekend.
For all the vituperations, South Korean officials seem confident that Kim Jong-il would not take drastic
or unpredictable action against the South. "It's a case of preferring to deal with the enemy you know,"
said a military source.
An armed forces official has said there's no sign of unusual military moves north of the demilitarized
zone, but, if Kim were to depart, "we would go on full alert".
Journalist Donald Kirk has been covering Korea - and the confrontation of forces in Northeast Asia for more than 30 years.
http://www.atimes.com
Sep 11, 2009
North Korea's succession gets twisted
By Andrei Lankov
SEOUL - In the past decade or so, the small army of Pyongyang watchers have been looking for signs
of a coming great event, which most expected to happen at any moment. They waited for Dear Leader
Kim Jong-il's decision on the power succession in the world's only communist monarchy. There were
false alarms, waves of unconfirmed and mutually exclusive rumors, but finally, early this year, signals
emerging from the North seemingly confirmed: the succession was finally decided.
The first reports were met with some skepticism. However, by April there were no doubts: Kim Jongun, Kim's youngest son, began to be frequently mentioned in the North Korean classified propaganda
materials. These publications are off-limits for common North Koreans, but the message was clear: the
virtues of the "brilliant comrade" Kim Jong-un were extolled in way which would be proper only for the
next leader. So, Kim Jong-il finally made up his mind about succession - or at least that is what most
observers came to believe.
But in August the situation took an unexpected turn; today, the prospect of a power transition to Kim
Jong-un looks far less certain than a month ago.
These days, while North Korean borders are transparent enough, it takes a few weeks for the rest of
the world to learn what is going on behind the closed doors of supposedly "classified" indoctrination
sessions for junior officials (the situation at higher levels is far less transparent). But a few days ago,
entrepreneurial journalists smuggled from North Korea classified propaganda materials which were
issued in July for military indoctrinators.
The materials describe the charisma of the "Young General Kim" and call him a "genius of military
affairs". They also explained his strategy was "the strategy of shock and offense" and told their
listeners that the boldness of the "young general" caught the "enemy" (obviously, the United States) by
surprise.
It is hinted that the missile launch in April and nuclear test in May were manifestations of the brilliant
new strategy, created by Kim Jong-un.
Meanwhile, members of the North Korea's Communist Youth Union were instructed to sing
"Footsteps", a new song that extolled the virtues of an unnamed young general, whose surname
happened to be Kim. North Koreans got the message: the titles which were used in the song are
different from those which are normally applied to any of two older "General Kims", so the person must
have been a new Kim.
Functionaries of the Communist Youth were also told that the ongoing "150 days battle" (a Maoiststyle shock labor campaign, quite normal for North Korea) is managed by Kim Jong-un and hence will
certainly lead to a major success.
Interestingly, the North Korea material reported that Kim Jong-un was 30 years old: obviously, any
idea of an heir who just turned 26 was seen as offensive in a Confucian country.
Nonetheless, no references to Kim Jong-un's name, let alone to his promotion, have appeared in
North Korea's general access media. The propaganda campaign was conducted behind closed doors,
and targeted either military personnel (largely officers) or activists of the Party Youth. The average
North Korean still has no clue about who Kim Jong-un is. If he or she does, it is probably due to
exposure to marketplaces where merchants actively exchange rumors that have filtered in from
overseas.
However, about a month ago the entire campaign was halted abruptly. Sources inside North Korea
report that since early August the name of Kim Jong-un is not heard any more. Even "Footsteps", his
"promotional song", suddenly ceased to be performed, and people are now advised not to sing it - for
the time being, at least. The "150 day battle" continues, but without references to the decisive role of
Kim Jong-un's managerial genius.
No explanations have been given - this is North Korea, after all. In a different country such turn of
events would produce a tidal wave of rumors, but North Koreans are well aware that matters of
succession (as well as things related to Dear Leader's family and health) are too dangerous to be
discussed or even mentioned.
A few days ago, North Korea Today, a weekly bulletin of "Good Friends", reported that local party
officials had received a set of the "Central Committee instructions" dealing with the succession issue.
While this report cannot be confirmed yet, the track records of the "Good Friends" is impressive: a
number of times their news bulletin was first to bring the news of great significance.
According to the report, the recent instructions - obviously issued in late August - explain that it is
premature to discuss the succession issue. The Dear Leader, they insist, is in perfect physical shape,
and he will be able to exercise his duties for a long time. Hence, the instructions continue, it is
politically incorrect to attract attention to the succession issue.
It seems clear that Kim Jon-un's promotion has been stopped. It can restart eventually, to be sure - but
for the time being, the decision about successor has obviously been put on hold. What are the
reasons behind this unexpected turn? Nobody can really answer this question with certainty, but some
guesses are possible.
It has been widely assumed that Kim Jong-il wants to continue his father's dynastic tradition, so some
day he will install one of his children as a next "Sun of the Nation". However, this assumption is not
supported by the evidence. On the contrary, it seems that due to some reasons Kim Jong-il is not too
eager to appoint an heir.
Had he really wanted to do so, he should have made this appointment about a decade ago. Kim Jongil himself became heir-designate in 1972 when his father turned 60, and in 1980 this appointment was
made into a law by the Party Congress.
Kim Jong-il is not only older than his father was in 1972 - his health is markedly more fragile, as even
official photos testify, and it seems certain that about a year ago he had an acute medical emergency
(perhaps, a stroke). Nonetheless, no signs of coming appointment have been seen until early this
year.
One can suggest a number of explanations for such reluctance. It is possible, for example, that Kim
Jong-il has deep doubts about the abilities of all available candidates. One cannot rule out the
influence of an ongoing factional struggle, with rival factions blocking appointments of candidates.
Finally, one cannot rule out that Kim Jong-il does not want to continue with the tradition of hereditary
rule at all. It is not as improbable as it sounds. He is perfectly aware about the sorry state of his
country, and hence might suspect that sooner a later the system will become unsustainable and
implode.
Being a good family man who probably puts his family's interests above that of his regime, Kim Jong-il
might want to ensure that his family will not be in control of the country at the time of the system's
collapse. If his children and grandchildren meet the inevitable crash as private citizens, they will have
far greater chances to continue with their individual lives and, with some luck, even keep some part of
their ill-gotten wealth.
This is speculation, but it is clear that, for whatever reasons, Kim Jong-il is reluctant to make decision
about succession. Kim Jong-un's appointment was confirmed in January (or a bit earlier) when Kim
Jong-il was seriously ill. One can surmise that the decision was forced on him by his entourage whose
interest this particular choice obviously serves very well.
The promotion of the youngest and the least-experienced of all candidates virtually ensures that in
case of Kim Jong-il's death, Kim Jong-un will remain an obedient puppet, easily manipulated by the
old guard. However, it seems that Kim Jong-il, after briefly yielding to the pressure of his officials,
changed his mind as soon as his health improved.
One cannot predict how the "Kim Jong-un affair" will develop. However, the entire incident should
remind us about the need to be careful when it comes to succession issues.
It is also important to remember that decisions about succession is easily reversible until the name of
the successor makes it to the pages of Nodon Sinmun, the party mouthpiece, and other official media
outlets. It is possible (and not very difficult) to stop a propaganda campaign which targets only officials.
It is much more difficult to change the decision once it is made public and official, after the praises of
the heir-designate appear widely in media. In other words, when it comes to the succession issues,
unless it is on the front page of Nodong Sinmun, it is not that relevant.
Andrei Lankov is an associate professor at Kookmin University in Seoul, and adjunct research fellow
at the Research School of Pacifica and Asian Studies, Australian National University. He graduated
from Leningrad State University with a PhD in Far Eastern history and China, with emphasis on Korea.
He has published books and articles on Korea and North Asia.
http://www.atimes.com
North Korea's Dear Film Buff
By John Feffer, June 15, 2007
The North Korean film projectionist is thinking back on her earlier life. When she was younger, she
tells the camera, she dreamed of acting. She wanted to play a heroic role on the screen. Her eyes
take on a wistful look. And there is a hint of pain in her voice. In any other country, this would be an
ordinary show of emotion. In North Korea, however, the ordinary is extraordinary, for outsiders catch a
glimpse of it so very rarely.
The North Korean woman, Han Yong-sil, is one of four film projectionists featured in a new
documentary, Comrades in Dreams. Directed by Ulli Gaulke, a young German filmmaker, the
documentary ties together the lives of cinema lovers from four countries: the United States, Burkino
Faso, India and North Korea.
While all the footage is fascinating, the material from North Korea is unique. Films from and about
North Korea rarely pierce the carefully constructed surface that the country and its citizens present to
the outside world. Yet here, captured by Gaulke, Comrade Han reveals an individual personality
behind the ritualized propaganda that she initially offers the camera.
Film has played an unusually prominent role in North Korean culture and history. Although it opens an
important window on to a closed society, North Korean film has been a singularly overlooked subject.
North Korean films are almost never shown in the United States. They rarely appear in international
film festivals. Few articles have been written on the subject.
That all may change soon, however. A French company has just bought the rights to show the North
Korean film A Schoolgirl's Diary, reportedly seen by 8 million North Koreans, more than one-third of
the population. Scholars are beginning to comb through North Korean films for clues about how the
system ticks. And documentaries like Comrades in Dreams and the latest effort from Dan Gordon and
Nicholas Bonner, Crossing the Line, are attracting attention at film festivals around the world.
The US and North Korea are inching closer together as a result of ongoing nuclear negotiations. With
normalized relations on the agenda, information about North Korean society becomes ever more
valuable. But do North Korean films ultimately reveal or conceal the reality of the country?
Bring up the subject of North Korean film and most people would be hard pressed to name a single
title. But nearly every article about North Korean leader Kim Jong-il mentions that he's a film buff with
one of the largest film collections in the world. In fact, Kim started out in the cinema world. The rise of
the "Dear Leader" to political leadership is linked inextricably to his film career.
"Kim Jong-il used film to prove that he was the legitimate guardian of his father Kim Il-sung's legacy,"
explained Kim Suk-young, a specialist on North Korean theater and film at the University of CaliforniaSanta Barbara. "Kim Il-sung was very keen on protecting his legacy as a national father. So Kim Jongil in the 1970s used film to prove that he was the legitimate heir."
These films helped solidify his father's personality cult and demonstrated that Kim Il-sung's successor,
unlike Deng Xiaoping in China or Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union, would avoid any iconoclastic
reforms.
Kim Jong-il was not the first person in North Korea to recognize the political uses of film. The regime
early on realized the revolutionary potential of the medium. When it took control over the northern half
of the Korean Peninsula at the end of World War II, the North Korean Workers' Party under Kim Il-
sung relied heavily on Soviet assistance. The Soviets, having pioneered film technique in the early
days of the Russian Revolution, offered cinematic help as well.
From the very start, however, North Korea showed its independent streak by not following the Soviet
model. "Even at its very beginning," writes historian Charles Armstrong, North Korean cinema "was
diverging from its Soviet sponsors' aims by creating a distinctive cinema rooted in melodramatic
emotionalism, a sentimental attachment to the Korean countryside, and the alleged values of peasant
life, and a nationalist politics centered around the person of Kim Il-sung".
To merge Soviet communism with North Korean nationalism - all rolled into the package of Kim Ilsung's personality cult - film was the ideal medium. As Kim Suk-young explains, it is much easier to
send films throughout the country as a propaganda tool than, for instance, relying on traveling theater
groups. More important, Pyongyang could control the form and content from beginning to end. Political
speakers sent to deliver propaganda to the masses might succumb to improvisation. Theater actors
might give an unintended interpretative spin to their lines of dialogue. But movies allow for total control
- or as close as the regime could get to total control in the cultural sphere.
Re-imaging history
Unlike Josef Stalin, Kim Il-sung often clothed his political instruction in narrative form. His multi-volume
autobiography, for instance, is full of stories and parables. But nothing could compare to the power of
film to create resonant images and stirring nationalist messages.
For instance, in the 1960s film On the Railway, set during the Korean War, the train-engineer hero
infiltrates the territory held by US and South Korean forces and pretends to be a defector driving his
train over to the other side. He is, like Kim Il-sung, a trickster who achieves victory despite
overwhelming odds. He doesn't do so on behalf of the workers of the world, however. He is fighting for
the Korean fatherland and against the foreign aggressor.
Other movies, such as An Jung Gun Shoots Ito Hirobumi and Star of Chosun, dramatize moments of
Korean history such as the 1909 assassination of a Japanese colonial official and the life of Kim Ilsung. Like the 1915 US film The Birth of a Nation, these films present a rewritten history that can
replace authentic memory and balanced scholarship. A government can censor books. But film has
the appearance of reality and can more seductively change how a citizenry understands its past.
Kim Jong-il put his stamp on North Korean filmmaking with his involvement in productions such as Sea
of Blood and Flower Girl. These films, adapted from revolutionary operas credited to his father Kim Ilsung, established a cultural vocabulary similar to the opera productions that Madame Mao (Jiang
Qing) unleashed on the Chinese population during the Cultural Revolution (so memorably described in
Anchee Min's memoir Red Azalea).
The language of these operas-turned-films, which both describe the atrocities of the Japanese colonial
period, defined the parameters of acceptable cultural discourse. The images became iconic, like the
Biblical tableaux that appeared in classical painting and formed the visual vocabulary of pre-modern
European culture.
By the late 1970s, having established his bona fides with his father, Kim Jong-il perceived that North
Korean film had hit a dead end. At that time, he already possessed an extraordinary collection of world
cinema. He understood the widening gap between the international and the national. To bridge the
gap, Kim Jong-il sought help from outside.
Revolution lite
One of the most popular films in Bulgaria in the late 1980s was North Korea's Hong Kil Dong (1986). A
classic tale of a Korean Robin Hood, the film introduced Hong Kong-style action to the Soviet bloc.
The ninja moves and soaring kicks dazzled East European audiences. "Hong Kil Dong attracted
hundreds of thousands of people to the cinemas across Bulgaria," writes Todor Nenov. "It was almost
impossible to get tickets for it, unless you booked them two or three days earlier!"
Borrowing from Hong Kong action movies was only one of the ways that the North Korean film industry
revived itself in the 1980s. Kim Jong-il borrowed more directly from outside when he arranged for the
abduction of South Korean actress Choi Eun-hee in 1978. Six months later, Kim abducted her
estranged husband, famous South Korean director Shin Sang-ok.
Before the pair managed to escape in 1986 during a stopover in Vienna, Shin Sang-ok introduced
many new innovations into North Korean film. His most famous films during this period - a North
Korean version of Godzilla called Pulgasari and a retelling of the famous Korean folk tale of
Chunhyang called Love, Love, My Love - added science fiction and musical romance to the North
Korean repertoire.
It is difficult to know whether the entertaining aspects of Hong Kil-Dong and Shin Sang-ok's movies
distracted North Korean moviegoers from the political messages or made those messages easier to
absorb. The historical and fantastical settings allowed for greater leeway in presenting stories.
Although the screenplays nod in the direction of the People, the writers needn't lard the narrative with
adoring references to the country's leader or address the tasks facing contemporary North Korean
society.
The contemporary love story in Traces of Life (1989) is by contrast entirely subordinate to the political
message of building a
utopian society. The movie tells the story of a grieving widow. Her husband has died in a suicide
mission that blows up an invading South Korean ship. Guilty about arguing with him on the night he
left to make the sacrifice, she exiles herself to the countryside, where she becomes a farmer and
eventually raises rice production to unprecedented levels.
She thus transforms her love of husband into love of country. When Kim Il-sung himself comes to her
farm and praises the collective's success, her love achieves its apotheosis. The love of the hero leader
has absolved her of the guilt she felt about not living up to the ideal of her hero husband.
Romance in North Korean films tends to be of the revolutionary not the bourgeois variety. As Ri
Hyang, the character in Urban Girl Comes to Get Married (1993), explains to her friend, she wants "a
man with perfume". Her friend, surprised, replies that "a man is not a flower". Ri Hyang continues: she
is looking for "a man who creates his life with great ambition, a man who is respected by people".
Although Urban Girl has a much lighter touch than Traces of Life, the message is the same: love
should be reserved for those who want and can build "paradise on earth". If that means partnering with
the fellow on the farm who spends night and day working on a better breed of duck, as urban girl Ri
Hyang ultimately does in the film, so be it.
Utopian dreams
Films in North Korea do not simply carry messages. They model behavior. Han Yong-sil, the
projectionist in Comrades in Dreams, explains that the audiences for her films learn about new
agricultural advances. And indeed, Urban Girl features information about livestock breeding and rice
transplanting, and Traces of Life provides information on microbial fertilizer.
But the films don't just supply technical content. They model revolutionary virtues. Kim Suk-young
points to the popularity of amateur contests in which average North Koreans learn the lines of famous
movie parts and then compete for the honor to present their monologues at the finals in Pyongyang. "It
sounds very oppressive to us," she says, "but there's comfort in identifying with those heroes." In this
way we see that North Korean films don't simply reveal or conceal reality. They actively construct
North Korean society.
As a projectionist on a model farm, Han Yong-sil also struggles to live up to the examples set in the
films she shows. Her husband is far away on an assignment to beautify Mount Paektu, the reputed
birthplace of the Dear Leader. This is an important mission and, like the heroine of Traces of Life, she
knows that she should subordinate her personal loneliness to the good of the nation. Still, it is clear
that she finds this task very difficult.
Her display of emotions reveals the normalcy of North Koreans. Ironically, it is this very normalcy,
because it falls short of the revolutionary ideal, that the North Korean government is loath to reveal to
the world. And so the outside world tends to perceive North Koreans as slightly unreal, as mere
mouthpieces for government propaganda.
In the 1960s and even into the 1970s, the utopian themes in North Korean cinema went hand in hand
with the rising expectations of the population. After the devastation of World War II and then the
Korean War, North Korea rapidly rebuilt itself. The government prided itself on the various industrial
and agricultural advances that put it on par with and even ahead of South Korea. By the 1980s,
however, North Korea was stagnant. It had fallen behind not only South Korea but even its own
previous standards.
It is interesting that Kim Jong-il perceived that North Korean film, too, was stagnant at this time. A kind
of cognitive dissonance must have begun to emerge among the North Korean population. The
government and the films were portraying an ever-improving society and yet the population must have
been noticing that reality was stubbornly not keeping pace. In the Soviet Union, during the years under
Leonid Brezhnev, people could get their entertainment elsewhere - foreign films, books, samizdat
publications. But North Koreans, until very recently, did not have any alternatives. And so the North
Korean film industry turned to escapism, like romance stories.
But even escapism has its limits, for there is a utopian quality to Urban Girl and Pulgasari as well.
Perhaps in response to the growing cognitive dissonance, the North Korean entertainment industry
has begun to address new themes: divorce, love triangles, the double and triple shifts of women.
"These dramas dealing with failure suggest that people are craving something different," observes Kim
Suk-young.
Reaching out?
The North Korean government boasts of its world-class film industry. But since a devastating loss in
an international film festival in Czechoslovakia in the early 1970s, North Korea hasn't tried very hard to
promote its films abroad.
Pyongyang has, however, hosted its own international film festival since 1987 and allows visitors to its
film studio. "North Korea has never been shy about propagandizing its grand achievements, and the
film industry is not something secretive," said journalist Ron Gluckman. "You can visit the studios as
part of a tourist itinerary.
"I did so on my first visit to North Korea back in 1992. I visited again in 2004, and the equipment
shown off was definitely ancient. I suspect they have been unable to keep up to date due to the
economic situation, and film has suffered as a consequence."
More recently, the government has allowed outside directors to make films inside the country.
Pyongyang Crescendo (2005) follows the story of a German conductor who spent 10 days in the North
Korean capital teaching music students. Dan Gordon and Nicholas Bonner have produced three
documentary films: on the North Korean soccer team that made it to the World Cup quarterfinals in
1966, on two girls training for the mass games in Pyongyang, and most recently on the US soldier
James Dresnok, who defected to North Korea in 1962.
The Game of Their Lives, the 2002 soccer documentary, showed that films could be made in North
Korea, said Nick Bonner. However, the country isn't exactly issuing a general invitation to the film
world. "It is still very difficult to film in [North Korea] and is certainly a case-by-case situation," Bonner
added.
With A Schoolgirl's Diary, the North Korean film industry will try once again to break into the
international market. In this 2006 release, a teenager complains that her scientist father is too busy to
pay attention to her. It is, according to reviews, a "humorous drama about a rebellious teenage girl". It
offers a picture of the North Korean elite that, in the film, uses computers, carries Mickey Mouse
schoolbags, and eats good food.
It shows a few flaws in the system, such as deteriorating housing stock. But these are, according to
Bonner, the "day-to-day flaws that fit the story line of struggle during this time when great sacrifice is
needed to build a strong country".
Regardless of whether A Schoolgirl's Diary attracts an international audience on the merits of its story
and its filmmaking, it will be an important document of North Korea's evolving society. It will also show
what kind of model behavior the government now wants to inculcate in its citizens.
"We might have to imagine the world with North Korea for another 25 or 50 years," Kim Suk-young
concludes. "We should look at film in order to understand and co-exist and to have a glimpse of North
Korea instead of reducing it to a one-dimensional propaganda tool."
http://www.newsweek.com
Korea's Mystery Man
Is Kim Jong Il A Playboy, A Terrorist Or A Peacemaker? Yes, Maybe And We'll See.
By George Wehrfritz, Nov 6, 2000
Forget for the moment that we're talking about the world's last totalitarian dictatorship. Imagine instead
a small, remote factory town in Asia. The boss--call him Kim senior--is a hardworking patriarch who
builds a family company. He has a soft spot for his spoiled heir, Kim junior. Lavished with money, the
boy treats the town as his personal playground, hot-rodding down Main Street, hoarding the local
video shop's latest movies and strutting into parties with a girl on each arm and whisky on his breath.
All seems well--until, quite suddenly, the father dies, leaving his factory and the town to his ne'er-dowell son.
That, in a sense, was North Korea six years ago. Kim Il Sung had died, leaving his communist country
in the hands of his pasty-faced son, 53-year-old Kim Jong Il. Until recently, North Korean "watchers" in
South Korea and abroad portrayed the younger Kim as a man weak for wine, women and Army toys.
Analysts opined that he would ruin North Korea and get toppled in a coup. Seoul spent years trying to
discredit Kim. In 1993, before he took power, South Korea's intelligence agency, the KCIA, published
a book titled "Kim Jong Il: Who Is He?" Based on interviews with defectors, it embellished tales of
Kim's supposed womanizing and debauchery, painting him as morally bankrupt and mentally unstable.
The KCIA later alleged that he trafficked in gold ingots, kept $2 billion in a slush fund and had 2,000
Rolex watches. Another report said he "urgently needs a kidney transplant." In 1997 a China-based
diplomat asserted that "the Kim Jong Il era will be short and violent."
Kim Jong Il does seem a quirky man stuck in a time warp. And he has, in fact, brought his country to
the brink of economic collapse. Unlike his socialist brothers in Beijing, Kim Jong Il has long resisted
reform--for fear that such "infectious" ideas might weaken his grip on power. But Kim has lately
punctured his crackpot image--at least a little--and shown the world a streak of pragmatism. As his
recent meetings with South Korean President Kim Dae Jung and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright suggest, the once reclusive leader is trying to guide his Hermit Kingdom out of isolation, and
he seems in a bit of a hurry. Kim himself is a mystery, but his motives for pursuing better relations with
Washington and Seoul are clear: after six years at the helm, he sorely needs foreign aid and
investment if he ever hopes to revive the North Korean economy. And yet at a weak point in his
country's history, Kim has managed to consolidate--not lose--power. "We now know that he's not only
in charge, but in charge in a very interesting way," says Leon Sigal of the Social Sciences Research
Council in New York.
Who is this man who now commands the attention of Washington and the world? Obviously, his
socialist roots run deep. As a young man Kim toured Soviet Russia and Eastern Europe, then studied
at Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang, writing a thesis titled "The Positive Role of Counties in
Establishing Socialism." The orthodox tome couldn't mask his bourgeois habits or growing reputation
as a hard-drinking playboy. Keiko Yoshimura, a Japanese hostess who worked in Pyongyang's
prestigious International Club in the early 1980s, recounts in her memoir an episode typical of the
stories that have circulated about Kim. She claims she met him at a party. He was drunk, sat beside
her "and opened his mouth as if wanting to be fed by his mother. He gave me a contented smile and
called me mama-san." Later that evening, in front of sixty cheering guests, Kim stripped down to
slacks and an undershirt and rose to conduct the orchestra.
Kim's recent display of diplomatic bonhomie may derive from his true obsession--Hollywood. He has
reputedly collected some 15,000 movies, many of them American. In 1978 communist agents-allegedly acting on his order--kidnapped South Korean movie director Shin Sang-ok and his actresswife, Choe Un-hui, in a bizarre gambit to upgrade North Korea's film industry. The couple, held in
Pyongyang for eight years, made movies (including a "Godzilla" knockoff) under Kim's guidance. They
managed to escape and fled to the U.S. Embassy in Vienna in 1986. In their 1989 book "Echoes From
Darkness," Shin portrays a young leader keenly aware of his vulnerabilities. At one party, writes Shin,
Kim was unnerved by people jumping with joy at his mere presence. "It's all lies," Kim said. "They don't
mean it. This is fake." Shin's conclusion: "He knew that such idolatry could melt away like snow."
Kim's reputation has been damaged by allegations that he has masterminded terrorist attacks. By the
early 1980s, Western intelligence experts believe, Kim junior controlled Pyongyang's clandestine
foreign operations. That put him in charge when, in 1983, North Korean assassins narrowly missed
killing South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan during a state visit to Burma. Powerful explosives
destroyed the Martyr's Mausoleum in Rangoon, killing four South Korean cabinet ministers. Four years
later two Northern agents slipped a bomb aboard Korean Air Lines flight 858 before it departed Abu
Dhabi for Seoul. The jetliner exploded over Burma, killing all 115 people aboard. One captured
bomber said the attack order had come directly from Kim Jong Il.
Ironically, the regional leader who has kept an open mind about Kim is South Korean leader Kim Dae
Jung. Last March--just ahead of his historic visit to Pyongyang--he ordered his own government to
"take a fresh look" at the North Korean boss. Two months after the North-South summit, Kim Dae
Jung told lunch guests in Seoul that Kim Jong Il "is not a man with defects, nor a man who lacks
common sense." After meeting the North's leader for six hours last week, Secretary Albright came to
the same conclusion. Are both she and Kim Dae Jung a little too goggle-eyed--smitten with the idea of
a rapprochement? It's possible. Is North Korea's new boss eccentric? Most certainly. A former
terrorist? Probably. Does he truly wish to end his country's devastating isolation? That's the question
that remains open--and when the world learns the answer, we might finally get a better read on Kim
Jong Il.
B. J. Lee in Seoul and Hideko Takayama in Tokyo
http://www.feer.com
Where in the World Is Kim Jong Il?
by Michael G. Kulma, September 11, 2008
With reports and speculation running rampant on the whereabouts and health of North Korean leader
Kim Jong Il—from the possibility of his having suffered a stroke, to rumors that he’s already dead—
"Korea-watchers" are grappling with how to get to the bottom of what’s really going on. The greatest
reason for concern that we know of remains his absence at festivities this week to celebrate the 60th
anniversary of the founding of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). But how seriously
should we take these concerns? Or, to put it more bluntly, should the world be alarmed?
While Kim did attend the more elaborate 50th and 55th anniversary celebrations in years past, such an
absence is not completely without precedent. In fact, Kim Jong Il is known for having a history of such
disappearances since taking the reins of power in 1994, after the death of his father. Many of these
previous disappearances were also accompanied by reports of ill health. His last public appearance,
as reported by the North Korean press, was about one month ago.
This is not to say that the current reports are without merit. Kim is now 66 years old and is known to
suffer from diabetes and heart problems. There are reports out of South Korea that he collapsed on
August 22nd.
We have also heard from other sources of a team of Chinese doctors being sent to North Korea to
treat a “senior-level North Korean official.” So what to make of the current situation?
This brings us to the big “what if” question. What if Kim Jong Il is incapacitated or worse? What will
happen domestically, to relations on the Korean Peninsula and further abroad?
In 1994, when his father died suddenly, there was a relatively clear line of succession pointed directly
at Kim Jong Il. As early as the 1960s, Kim began to rise through the ranks of the Korean Workers’
Party, while also playing a role in the Party Central Committee. By the 1980s, he held senior positions
in the Politburo, the Military Commission, and the party Secretariat. At this time, Kim also began to be
referred to as the “Dear Leader” not to be confused with his father, Kim Il Sung, the “Great Leader.”
Finally, in 1991, he was named the supreme commander of the North Korean armed forces. So upon
his father’s death it was somewhat natural that he took over the titles of General Secretary of the
Workers’ Party of Korea and Chairman of the National Defense Commission.
Such is not the case today. While Kim Jong Il has three sons, none seems to be a clear frontrunner to
take over from him. If not one of his sons, most speculation seems to focus on the military as playing a
leading role in governing North Korea. Generally speaking, with no clear line of succession in place,
the potential instability that could result presents a somewhat disconcerting situation in the short-term,
should Kim Jong Il suddenly die.
Assuming stability would eventually prevail (and this is a big assumption), no matter who takes over in
such a situation there is little likelihood of a major change in North Korea’s policies, both on the
domestic and international fronts. As the leaders continue to protect the interests of the party, we
would expect to see more of the same on the domestic policy front. Similarly, North Korea’s spotty
record of international interaction would likely continue.
But what about that little likelihood of a change? Is it possible that Kim Jong Il could be replaced by a
more moderate leader or faction within the party—a leadership that might move North Korea in the
direction of reform and opening taken in China thirty years ago? The possibility, however small, does
exist. If North Korea moved in such a direction there would likely be tremendous support from South
Korea, China (which has been prodding North Korea to move in this direction for some time), Japan
and even the United States, amongst other countries in the region. In essence, a whole new world of
opportunities would open to North Korea and its people.
But let us not put the cart before the horse. There are still many questions left unanswered by the
current situation and there will be plenty of time to speculate about the future of North Korea and the
Korean Peninsula as more answers and information become available. Until that time we are all left to
ponder…where in the world is Kim Jong Il?
Michael G. Kulma is the director of policy programs at Asia Society.
http://www.theatlantic.com
Aug 5 2009, by Eleanor Barkhorn
What Did Bill Clinton and Kim Jong Il Eat?
We don't know what Bill Clinton and Kim Jong Il ate during the two-hour-long dinner that ended in the
North Korean leader's decision to release two American journalists who had been imprisoned since
March.
But we can be sure that they ate well. If it was a former American president's presence that sealed the
deal, the North Korean despot certainly considered it a special occasion--one, it must be said, in a
country ravaged by malnutrition and poverty.
Clinton's appetite for food--especially of the fast variety--is well-documented. And while North Korea's
"Dear Leader" is a notorious recluse, reports of his epicurean--and at times bizarre--eating habits have
been surfacing in recent years, thanks to revelations from his former chefs.
"He particularly enjoyed raw fish so fresh that he could start eating as its mouth is still gasping and the
tail is still thrashing," said former chef Kenji Fujimoto, who wrote a book called I Was Kim Jong-il's
Cook, which was excerpted in The Atlantic in 2004.
Other highlights from Fujimoto's book:
Kim has an exceptional palate:
I was preparing sushi in the Number 8 Banquet Hall. All of a sudden Kim Jong Il said, "Fujimoto,
today's sushi tastes a little different."
He had had a lot to drink that evening before the meal, and I suggested that maybe that was the
reason.
He replied, "Maybe..." He seemed doubtful, but didn't pursue it any further.
However, when I returned to the kitchen, I checked the seasoning used that day and found that the
sugar was ten grams less than usual! Kim Jong Il was the only one who had noticed. Even I was
astonished at this.
He's a perfectionist about his rice:
With respect to rice, before cooking it a waiter and a kitchen staff member would inspect it grain by
grain. Chipped and defective grains were extracted; only those with perfect form were presented.
And he requests foods from all over the world:
Here are the countries I visited and the foods I frequently bought there:
* Urumqi (in northwestern China) for fruit, mainly hamigua melons and grapes
* Thailand for fruit, mostly durians, papayas, and mangoes
* Malaysia for fruit, mostly durians, papayas, and mangoes
* Czechoslovakia for draft beer
* Denmark for pork
* Iran for caviar
* Uzbekistan for caviar
* Japan for seafood
His other favorite foods are more conventional, like French cheeses and pizza--a food he likes so
much, he hired an Italian pizza chef to make pies for him and teach other North Koreans how to make
it. (He's written about his experiences, too, in a series of articles titled "I Made Pizza for Kim Jong-il".)
But the food prefererence that may have served him best in his negotiations with junk-food loving
Clinton? Hamburgers. Kim reportedly likes them so much, he told the North Korean people he
invented them; the country just opened its first fast food restaurant.
http://www.time.com
Feb. 08, 2007
In Search of Lil' Kim
The plush chairs in the lobby of Macau's Mandarin Oriental Hotel are filled with a cadre of journalists
looking distinctly slovenly in their luxurious surroundings. Tripods poke out from underneath couches,
cameras rest on tables, and reporters crane their necks to stare down the corridors. The object of the
press pack's Friday-night stakeout is not the Prime Minister of Portugal, here on a two-day visit to his
country's former colony. Instead, we're hoping to catch a glimpse of a man known for getting busted
trying to sneak into Japan to visit Tokyo Disneyland and for his reported ability to drink 10
boilermakers in a sitting. That would be Kim Jong Nam, eldest son of North Korean dictator Kim Jong
Il.
The South China Morning Post reported the previous day that the 35-year-old was living large in the
Chinese territory an hour's ferry ride from Hong Kong. Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun even ran a picture of
Kim's distinctively pudgy progeny standing on a Macau street sporting sunglasses, a man purse and a
smile on his face. As the Dear Leader's firstborn son, Jong Nam was once considered his father's
probable successor. But after the 2001 Disney debacle, when he was stopped at Narita International
Airport with a forged Dominican passport and then deported to China, Jong Nam has apparently fallen
from favor. That didn't diminish the interest of the media, especially in Japan. "North Korea is a No. 1
concern for us," says Tsuyoshi Ikeda, a news director for Nippon Television, puffing a cigarette in the
Mandarin's lobby. "So it's important that we watch them."
That's easier said than done in a throbbing boomtown like Macau. In 2002 the Chinese government
lifted a 40-year monopoly on casinos in Macau, prompting a gambling-and-tourism explosion that
brought a record 22 million visitors to the territory last year. Fueled by punters from mainland China, it
has surpassed the Las Vegas Strip as the world's biggest gambling center. As it has grown, Macau
has begun to shed its image as a shady place that handles illicit international finance. When the U.S.
Treasury Department in 2005 named Macau's Banco Delta Asia a "willing pawn" in money laundering
for Pyongyang, regulators in Macau agreed to freeze $24 million in North Korean funds held by the
bank. Given the crackdown, it may well have been embarrassing for a potential heir of the nucleararmed hermit kingdom's ruler to pop up in the territory.
And pop up again. Days after the Macau sighting reports, Japan's TBS television broadcast footage of
a man believed to be Kim Jong Nam walking to a cab. He was wearing a powder blue sport coat and
pink shirt and drinking a green beverage from a bottle. "Are you staying at the Mandarin hotel?" the
reporter asked. "I cannot tell you," the man replied. "My privacy."
Like most of the other reporters, we missed that encounter, so we return to the Mandarin.
An agitated TV cameraman from a Japanese network sits on the edge of a couch. "Have you seen
him?" I ask. "If I had seen him, I wouldn't be here," he snaps. So we head out again, popping our
heads into every club and casino we see. At the Grand Emperor Hotel, its entrance fronted by two
gilded carriages, we ride an escalator to the amplified din of jangling coins broadcast through the
sound system. I doubt Jong Nam is really here, but on a floor of slot machines, I ask hotel staff to page
Mr. Kim. The woman behind the desk stares at me blankly. "I'm sorry, sir," she says. "I can't turn off
the music."
The next morning we head for an apartment that the younger Kim keeps for his family, at least, that is,
according a report in South Korea's Chosun Ilbo. It's in an exclusive waterfront development, but save
for a sunflower image painted on its tile wall, "his" place looks identical to those around it. We ring the
doorbell, but no one shows. A security guard gives us a dirty look, so we buzz off. Our options
dwindling, we decide to call off our search. Perhaps we should have followed the lead of Nippon
Television's Norihisa Kabaya, whom we ran into earlier. He was patrolling a boardwalk near the black
sand of Hac Sa beach, video camera rolling while his interpreter waved a blown-up photograph of the
smiling Kim Jong Nam. "Have you seen this man?" the interpreter asked us. We have, but only in
pictures.
http://www.nzz.ch
4. Juni 2009
Spuren von Nordkoreas Diktatoren-Sohn
Berner Vergangenheit des möglichen neuen Führers?
TV-Bild zeigt Kim Jong Un im Alter von 11 Jahren. (Bild: Reuters)
Der jüngste Sohn und mögliche Nachfolger von Nordkoreas Führer Kim Jong Il soll in Gümligen bei
Bern zur Schule gegangen sein. Doch der 26-jährige Kim Jong Un bleibt ein Phantom.
Ein Bild als Erwachsener ist von ihm nicht bekannt, und selbst bei dem Foto, das seit einigen Tagen in
den Medien zirkuliert und ihn angeblich als etwa 10-jährigen Knaben zeigt, ist strittig, ob es sich um
Kim Jong Un selber oder nicht doch um seinen älteren Bruder handelt. Als ähnlich diffus erweist sich
die Suche nach Spuren seiner Berner Vergangenheit. Ist der designierte Nachfolger von Nordkoreas
gesundheitlich schwer angeschlagenem Machthaber Kim Jong Il tatsächlich in Gümligen bei Bern zur
Schule gegangen?
Versiegende Quellen
Bei der International School, um die es sich handelt, ist bloss eine Standardantwort zu erhalten: Es sei
Politik des Hauses, über ehemalige Schüler keine Auskunft zu erteilen. Mehr Glück hatte eine
Journalistin des welschen Magazins «L'Hebdo», die Anfang März dem früheren Direktor der Schule
David Gatley eine Bestätigung zu entlocken vermochte. Inzwischen ist auch diese Quelle versiegt. Auf
Nachfrage lässt Gatley, der zurzeit in Madrid tätig ist, ausrichten, er kommentiere die Angelegenheit
nicht.
So basiert das bruchstückhafte Wissen, das in diesen Tagen weltweit von Kim Jong Uns Jugendzeit in
Bern kolportiert wird, hauptsächlich auf dem Bericht von «L'Hebdo», dessen Verfasserin nach eigenen
Angaben mit mehreren Kommilitonen und ehemaligen Lehrern gesprochen hat. Demnach soll Kim
Jong Un die International School 1998 im Alter von 15 Jahren verlassen haben, ohne mit dem
Baccalaureate abgeschlossen zu haben. Wie viele Jahre er die Schule besucht hat, kann nicht
verifiziert werden, hingegen kann davon ausgegangen werden, dass er unter einem Pseudonym
eingeschrieben war. Die International School of Berne an der Mattenstrasse in Gümligen wird von
knapp 300 Schülern aus 40 Nationen besucht, rund die Hälfte von ihnen entstammt
Diplomatenfamilien.
Laut den Schilderungen soll sich Kim Jong Un für Kampfsportarten, fürs Skifahren und für Basketball
interessiert haben. Einige Stimmen wenden allerdings ein, diese Vorlieben seien seinem älteren
Bruder Kim Jong Chol zuzuschreiben, der ebenfalls einige Jahre an die Berner International School
gegangen sein soll. Im Kreis der vielen Diplomatenkinder ist nicht weiter aufgefallen, dass Kim Jong
Un jeden Tag von einem Chauffeur abgeholt wurde. Dieser fuhr ihn jeweils ans andere Ende der
Berner Vorortsgemeinde an die Pourtalèsstrasse in Muri, in die Botschaft der Demokratischen
Volksrepublik Korea, wie die offizielle Bezeichnung Nordkoreas lautet. Dort hat man am Mittwoch eine
telefonische Anfrage höflich, aber dezidiert zurückgewiesen: Bei all den Geschichten handle es sich
bloss um Gerüchte, die nicht stimmten, sagte ein Mitarbeiter der Botschaft.
Austausch in Berndeutsch
Von einer zufälligen Begegnung mit dem jungen Kim Jong Un hingegen erzählt Hans Ulrich Reusser,
ein Berner Agronom, der während einiger Jahre mehrmals für das Deza in Nordkorea im Einsatz war.
Während des Entwicklungsprojekts habe ihn ein Mitarbeiter der nordkoreanischen Botschaft als
Übersetzer unterstützt. Bei einem dieser Treffen vor rund zehn Jahren in einem Thuner Restaurant
habe der Mitarbeiter einen Jugendlichen als seinen Sohn vorgestellt. Weil Verschiedenes an dieser
Version nicht stimmen konnte, vermutet Reusser heute, es könnte sich um Kim Jong Un gehandelt
haben, wie er auf Anfrage bestätigt. Als flotten jungen Mann habe er ihn in Erinnerung – und
gesprochen habe er nicht etwa Hochdeutsch, sondern Bernerdialekt.
http://www.petermaass.com
The Last Emperor
The New York Times Magazine, October 19, 2003
Kim Jong Il, the world’s most dangerous dictator, has always been a figure surrounded by mystery and
myth. But, from defectors and former aides, a portrait is emerging of family dysfunction, palace intrigue
and imperial menace.
The Dear Leader is a workaholic. Kim Jong Il sleeps four hours a night, or if he works through the
night, as he sometimes does, he sleeps four hours a day. His office is a hive of activity; reports cross
his desk at all hours. Dressed as always in his signature khaki jumpsuit, he reads them all, issuing
instructions to aides, dashing off handwritten notes or picking up the phone at 3 a.m. and telling
subordinates what should lead the news broadcasts or whom to dispatch to a prison camp. His
micromanaging style is less Caligula, with whom he has often been compared, and more Jimmy
Carter on an authoritarian tear.
The Dear Leader, as the North Korean media refer to him, wishes to be viewed as a modern leader.
He has boasted to visitors that he has three computers in his office, though it’s not known if he
operates them himself or has aides who do so. His eldest son is reputed to be a computer whiz and,
like sons the world over, is credited with bringing his father into the digital age. When Madeleine K.
Albright, then the secretary of state, visited North Korea in 2000, Kim asked her, as he said farewell, to
give him the State Department’s e-mail address.
Because of weakening eyesight, the Dear Leader rarely reads newspapers; for keeping abreast of
world affairs, he relies on television. It is a safe bet that he is well aware of the uproar caused by his
government’s confirmation, earlier this month, that it has begun making nuclear bombs from
reprocessed plutonium. In a meeting a few years ago with a group of South Korean media executives,
Kim explained that he began watching South Korean television in 1979. A media junkie, he also
watches NHK from Japan, as well as CCTV from China and CNN. Having led his nation into chronic
poverty and famine, what does he make of the enormous wealth he sees in the broadcasts and
commercials?
Ordinary North Koreans would be sent to the gulag for watching Western TV, but the Dear Leader may
do as he pleases, as all dictators may do as they please, and it pleases him to watch television. He
especially enjoys watching tapes of the latest movies from Hollywood, some of which are believed to
be sent to Pyongyang in diplomatic pouches from North Korean missions in New York and Beijing.
Kim is not known to speak Japanese or Chinese, so interpreters presumably assist him with foreignlanguage broadcasts; on any given evening, his interpreter might be his favorite mistress, Ko Young
Hee, who was born in Japan and is assumed to speak Japanese. When Kim watches Russian
television, as he says he does, he may not need an interpreter, because he spent his early years in
the Soviet Union; when Russians visit, he sings them Soviet military songs. As for English, he knows
at least a few words. A Japanese man who worked as Kim’s personal chef wrote in a recent memoir
that the Dear Leader always asked for extra helpings of toro, his favorite cut of sushi, by saying “one
more” in English.
The Dear Leader has always been a master of details. Although it was not until 1994, upon the death
of his father, Kim Il Sung, that Kim Jong Il became the official ruler of North Korea, he was all but
running the country for years before that. Appointments to any senior post were made by him, whether
in the Korean Workers Party (which controls all government institutions) or the Korean People’s Army.
Decisions on all manner of issues – from the gifts of food and electronic goods that party officials and
commoners received on national holidays to the direction and scope of the country’s clandestine
nuclear-weapons programs – were made by “the party center,” as Kim was called, in whispers, in the
years before his father’s death. The choicest reward that he doled out was a Mercedes-Benz with a
license plate that begins “2-16,” in reference to his birthday, Feb. 16.
The Dear Leader’s political skills, underestimated by foreign observers until recently, are beginning to
register now that he has begun meeting foreigners on a regular basis and now that his regime, along
with Iran, is one of two surviving members of the “axis of evil” proclaimed by President Bush. Albright’s
delegation spent more than 12 hours with Kim over two days in October 2000, half of that time in
negotiations and the other half at dinners and ceremonial functions. During one negotiating session,
Kim was presented with a list of 14 technical questions related to his missile program; the Americans
expected him to pass the list to advisers who would respond later. Instead, Kim went down the list,
one question after another, and answered most of them himself.
Indeed, the Dear Leader, who turned 62 this year, knows quite a bit about the world around him. And
after decades of being nearly clueless, the world around him is gradually getting to know the Dear
Leader, too.
–
The Bush administration is trying to figure out how to end Kim’s regime, or at least to neutralize it. This
is proving to be an extraordinarily difficult task, since the regime is far more resilient than anyone
expected and far more dangerous.
North Korea has possessed short-range missiles for years, but was never known to have long-range
missile capability. Then in 1998 North Korea stunned the intelligence community by launching a threestage rocket bearing a satellite. The C.I.A. says that it believes these Taepodong-1 rockets could be
used as missiles to reach the United States. The rocket veered off course after launch, so the North
Koreans obviously have some kinks to work out. Even so, Washington is worried, not only about North
Korea being able to launch an intercontinental attack but also about the North Koreans selling their
missile technology to other regimes. North Korea is believed to have provided missiles to Pakistan in
exchange for nuclear technology. And according to a recently released report by David Kay, the C.I.A.
adviser on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, North Korea agreed in 1999 to a missile deal with
Baghdad that was aborted late last year.
No one is sure of North Korea’s own nuclear intentions. In 1994, facing the threat of a pre-emptive
attack by the United States, North Korea agreed to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for a
package of foreign aid and energy supplies. At the time, the C.I.A. publicly estimated that North Korea
might already possess an atom bomb. The 1994 agreement fell apart in 2002 after North Korea kicked
out U.N. nuclear inspectors who were keeping watch over 8,000 plutonium rods that could be
reprocessed into weapons-grade material.
During the past year, North Korea strongly hinted that the rods were being reprocessed, and on Oct. 2
the regime announced, more directly than before, that the reprocessing was under way and that its
“nuclear deterrent force” was being expanded. Experts say that if all 8,000 rods are reprocessed,
North Korea could make perhaps 20 nuclear bombs, but it’s not certain whether bombs have yet been
made; bluffing is an integral element of Kim’s nuclear poker game.
Along with South Korea, Japan, China and Russia, the United States began the first round of so-called
six-party talks in Beijing with North Korea in late August, and a second round may be held in
November. Whether those talks take place, and what happens if they do, depends greatly on whether
the Bush administration decides to offer incentives for Kim to disarm or whether it decides to isolate
him further. The underlying issues are quite stark: Can Kim be reformed? Can he be deposed? At the
heart of the matter is this: Who is Kim Jong Il?
–
Dictators come in different strains, like poisons. Some are catastrophically toxic; others, less so. Quite
often, the harm a dictator will cause is associated with an internal drive to violence or a paranoia that
begets violence or a mixture of both. Saddam Hussein is a case in point; his personal viciousness is
legendary. Dictators of this sort are easy to read and easy to despise because they are obvious killers.
But what is to be made of a dictator who is charming, as Kim can be, and has never been known
personally to raise a weapon or even a hand against anyone? This can be a no-less-dangerous strain
of dictator, and in the world today, Kim Jong Il is its most striking example. Though friendly with
important visitors, Kim is vicious to his own people. An estimated two million of them died during a
preventable famine in the 1990’s, and several hundred thousand are in prison and labor camps; many
have been executed.
While I was a reporter in South Korea, from 1987 to 1990, it was common to view Kim as an erratic
playboy; tales of his reclusiveness and tastes for women and wine were abundant. He was, it seemed,
a nut job, incapable of holding North Korea together once his father died. While Kim Il Sung was alive,
Kim Jong Il avoided the spotlight. North Koreans did not even hear his voice until a broadcast in 1992,
when at a ceremony for the army’s 60th anniversary, he said, “Glory to the people’s heroic military!”
Six words. It would be many years before he was heard from again.
Kim Jong Il has never granted an interview to a Western reporter, and visits to North Korea by
Western journalists are exceedingly rare. (I visited Pyongyang in 1989 but was refused a visa this time
around.) However, since 2000 a flood of information has emerged from South Koreans, Russians and
Americans who have met the Dear Leader and from high-level defectors who have escaped his orbit.
What emerges from these sources is a picture of a dictator who is not crazy like Idi Amin or
bloodthirsty like Saddam Hussein. Kim can be courteous, he is very intelligent and he doesn’t drink
nearly as much as he is rumored to. Nor is he the playboy that the popular myth makes him out to be.
Instead, his dictatorship mixes high technology with Confucian traditions: a kind of cyberfeudalism. It is
an ideology that has been catastrophic for the people of North Korea.
It was the summer of 2000, and Kim Jong Il was in a sunny mood. He had just held a summit meeting
in Pyongyang with Kim Dae Jung, South Korea’s president at the time. The South Koreans, in order to
make the meeting happen, had provided $100 million in under-the-table payments, which meant North
Korea’s usually bare treasury was temporarily not so bare. The cash had created a brief thaw in
relations, and on Aug. 5 a delegation of South Korean media executives, including the heads of its
television networks and newspapers, arrived at Pyongyang airport.
On their first night in North Korea’s capital, the visitors from Seoul were treated to a feast at a banquet
hall. Wine from Bordeaux was served, along with multiple courses of Korean food, including kalbi-kuk,
a meat stew. The guests ate with copper chopsticks, and their dinner lasted for four hours, presided
over at the head table by the Dear Leader. Seated to his right was Choe Hak Rae, then publisher of
Hankyoreh Shinmun, a newspaper known for its friendly coverage of North Korea.
As Choe recalls, Kim was ebullient, acting more like a Broadway producer with a smash hit on his
hands than a dictator running a repressive and impoverished regime. Kim told jokes and casually
conversed about everything from horses to missiles. When a fawning aide stopped by the head table
and began praising his boss, Kim told him to skip the formalities – his precise words, in Korean, were
“Cut it out” – and pour wine for their brothers from South Korea. He cried out “Straight!” when it came
time for a toast, meaning that they should drain their glasses, but he only sipped his own wine. Kim
told his guests that his doctors had suggested he cut down on liquor. Dictators can do many things,
but they cannot keep their livers young forever.
The conversation turned to hobbies. Kim is an avid equestrian and told Choe that his best thoughts
occur on horseback. He prefers Orlovs, a Russian breed, and likes to ride them as fast and as far as
they can go.
The subject of war was raised, delicately. Why, Choe inquired, was North Korea’s government
spending its scarce resources on ballistic missiles instead of education or other social programs that
would directly benefit its starving citizens? The Dear Leader did not hesitate to reply. “The missiles
cannot reach the United States,” he said, “and if I launch them, the U.S. would fire back thousands of
missiles and we would not survive. I know that very well. But I have to let them know I have missiles. I
am making them because only then will the United States talk to me.”
The North Korean leader took a liking to Choe and invited him to return with his family, offering to
show them around and ride horses with them. When Choe left Pyongyang a few days later, Kim shook
his hand at a farewell luncheon and said, with great emotion: “Keep your promise. Come next spring
with your family.”
Choe has not returned – the North-South thaw has chilled a bit – but North Korean officials have
passed on to him a stream of entreaties from the Dear Leader. The gist of the messages, according to
Choe, whom I met in Seoul in August, is quite simple: “Why haven’t you come?”
According to the official version of his life story, Kim was born on Feb. 16, 1942, in a log cabin on
Mount Paektu, the highest mountain on the Korean Peninsula. When he was born, the official version
goes, the sky was brightened by a star and a double rainbow.
The truth is that Kim was born a year earlier in the Soviet Union, at an army base near Khabarovsk, in
the Soviet far east, not far from the short border shared by the two countries. His father was stationed
there as the commander of a Korean battalion in the Soviet Army 88th Brigade, which engaged in
reconnaissance missions against Japanese troops. Because it would be inconvenient, for reasons of
Korean nationalism, to have Kim born on foreign soil, his place and date of birth have been fabricated
in official biographies.
The biographers also make no mention of Kim’s childhood name – Yura, which is Russian and was
used through his high-school years. Kim had a younger brother who also had a Russian nickname,
Shura. In 1945, after Japan was defeated and the northern half of Korea occupied by Soviet troops,
Kim Il Sung was taken to Pyongyang by his Soviet benefactors and installed as the leader of North
Korea. (The official version has Kim Il Sung heroically leading Korean guerrillas in a rout of the
Japanese.) A few months later, the boys moved to Pyongyang, where their younger sister, Kim Kyung
Hee, was born.
Shura died in 1948 in a drowning accident while swimming in a pond with Kim Jong Il. In 1949, Kim’s
mother, Kim Jong Sook, died while giving birth to a stillborn child. Though well cared for – their father,
after all, was North Korea’s leader – Kim Jong Il and his little sister became de facto orphans: their
mother dead, their father busy laying the groundwork for his socialist paradise. In 1950, the Korean
War broke out, and the children were sent to the safety of Manchuria, where they stayed until the war
ended in 1953. Kim was learning to survive on his own, which meant using his wits.
Back in Pyongyang, he attended Namsan Senior High School, where the ruling elite’s children were
educated; he often rode a motorcycle to class. Even then, he was a student of power. According to
Hwang Jang Yop, who was a top aide to Kim Il Sung, the younger Kim showed an early interest in
politics. (Hwang defected from North Korea in 1997, so his memoir, published in South Korea, is
hardly an official hagiography.) In 1959 Hwang accompanied Kim Il Sung to Moscow, and although
Kim Jong Il was only a senior in high school, he went along, too.
“Kim Jong Il was intelligent and full of curiosity, asking me many questions,” Hwang wrote. “Despite his
young age, he already harbored political ambitions. He paid special attention to his father. . . . Every
morning he would help his father to get up and put on his shoes.” In the evening, Hwang wrote, when
Kim Il Sung returned from a day of official meetings, Kim Jong Il assembled his father’s staff “and had
them report to him about the things that happened during the day. He then proceeded to give orders.”
In 1964, Kim graduated with a degree in political economy from Kim Il Sung University, an elite
institution where, according to a South Korean biographer, he was addressed as “the premier’s son.”
He went to work in the central committee of the Korean Workers Party, first as a ministerial assistant,
swiftly becoming a senior official in the propaganda and agitation department, which controlled much
of the party’s agenda.
Kim was working his way up the system, and working the system, but also looking over his shoulder.
Nothing in his rise to power would be easy or preordained. Dynastic succession was far from
inevitable, and even if there was to be a dynasty, it was not clear whether Kim would be its beneficiary.
His uncle, Kim Young Ju, was a senior government official. More threatening, however, was Kim’s new
stepmother: Kim Song Ae, a typist whom Kim Il Sung married in the early 1960’s.
According to accounts from defectors, as well as from Chinese and Soviet visitors to North Korea, Kim
Jong Il did not get along with his stepmother. There are unconfirmed stories that he tore her face out
of pictures. Kim Song Ae became a member of the central committee of the Korean Workers Party,
giving her a position from which to influence succession. She had children with Kim Il Sung, and one
of their sons, Kim Pyong Il, was viewed as a possible heir because of his intelligence and likeness to
his father. (Famously, Kim Jong Il was several inches shorter than his father, an inconvenience that
led him to wear platform shoes.)
As he moved to secure his position, Kim needed to remain in the good graces of his father while
outmaneuvering his stepmother, half-brother, uncle and anyone else – particularly the country’s
powerful generals – who wished to lead North Korea.
Kim Il Sung’s regime did not take long to veer from Communist orthodoxy and become a personality
cult of the sort perfected by Stalin in the Soviet Union. In the early 1970’s, North Koreans began
wearing lapel pins bearing the likeness of the Great Leader, as the official media described Kim Il
Sung; he was portrayed as, basically, infallible. The elite was purged of anyone with wavering loyalty
or anyone who might develop wavering loyalties; Kim Il Sung placed close relatives at his side.
During this period, Kim Jong Il was working hard to smooth his way to power.
“I had an impression that he was implementing his plans to get rid of even those very close to Kim Il
Sung, including his uncle,” Hwang wrote. “In order to show his father that he was the most loyal, he
singled out people near Kim Il Sung. Arguing that these people were not loyal and citing doubts about
their ideology or competency, he would relentlessly attack and remove them.”
Until recently, conventional wisdom held that through the 70’s and 80’s Kim Jong Il filled his nights with
parties and days with terrorism. In 1987, two North Korean agents placed a bomb aboard a Korean Air
Lines flight, killing all 115 people on board. One agent, a young woman, was caught and said after
extradition to Seoul that her controllers told her the attack was ordered by Kim Jong Il.
Whatever his role in terrorism, it has become clear that Kim Jong Il was running North Korea well
before his ailing father died in 1994, at the age of 82, of an apparent heart attack. In the years before
his death, according to Hwang, “Kim Il Sung was not the Kim Il Sung of years past. Most of his vitality
had disappeared, and he was turning into an old man concerned only with successfully handing over
power to Kim Jong Il.”
Many North Korea experts believe Kim Jong Il stayed in the background for the sake of appearances:
in a Confucian society, a son must defer, publicly, to his father. If Kim Jong Il moved too rashly, he
might have engendered resentment from elderly members of the military whose backing or quiescence
he needed.
One way he cemented his hold on power was to do as his father did: place close relatives in influential
positions. Kim’s sister, Kim Kyung Hee, became a powerful figure within the Korean Workers Party
and has been referred to in the government media as “First Lady.” Her husband, Chang Song Taek,
heads the party’s organizational department. His brother, Chang Song U, commands the army district
that defends Pyongyang.
Kim’s control over the military and his insinuation of loyalists into key command positions are a
linchpin of his hold on power. He travels often within North Korea, particularly to military bases,
because, as he told the South Korean media chiefs, “my power comes from the military.” Though he
has many posts, including general secretary of the Korean Workers Party, the one that truly counts is
his chairmanship of the National Defense Commission, which controls the armed forces.
Kim’s regime is best understood as an imperial court, clouded in intrigue, not unlike the royal
households that ruled Japan, China and, throughout most of its existence, Korea itself. Until the 20th
century, Korea was led by feudal kings, notably the Yi dynasty. By creating a personal and uncaring
regime, Kim Il Sung wasn’t stealing a page from only Stalin; he was also stealing it from Korean
history, a fact that helps explain its durability.
“North Korea is a semifeudal society that is still based on traditional Korean values,” says Alexandre
Mansourov, a scholar at the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies who was a Soviet diplomat based
in Pyongyang in the 1980’s. “There are traces of modernity, but if you look at the structure of thinking,
it is very traditional, in a medieval sense.”
A hallmark of emperors is lavish court entertainment in the face of poverty or distress in their domains.
Kim Jong Il appeared to be cut from this imperial cloth. Through the 70’s and 80’s, stories emerged
from North Korea of wild parties Kim Jong Il held, attended by beautiful women and drunken men. One
of the finest accounts of that era comes from Choi Eun Hee, a popular South Korean actress who was
kidnapped from Hong Kong in 1978 and bundled off to North Korea. Kim was disappointed with the
backward state of North Korea’s film industry, so he tried to jump-start it by ordering the kidnapping of
Choi and, shortly thereafter, her husband, Shin Sang Ok, a director in Seoul.
After they were taken to Pyongyang, he explained to them, in a conversation that they surreptitiously
recorded, “I just said, ‘I need those two people, so bring them here,’ so my comrades just carried out
the operation.” Eight years later, after making a number of films in North Korea, Choi and Shin
escaped while visiting Vienna.
In a memoir she wrote with her husband, “Kidnapped to the North Korean Paradise,” which has not
been published in English, Choi recalls being woken one morning at 5 at the guarded villa where Kim
had placed her. Her controller told her to get dressed quickly, but wouldn’t say why. Within minutes, a
Mercedes arrived at the villa and whisked her into central Pyongyang, to a building used for Kim Jong
Il’s parties.
“As I entered,” Choi wrote, “I was assaulted with the pungent odor of alcohol. Farther inside, I saw
quite a spectacle. Forty or 50 people apparently had partied all night. The men were drunk, and there
were several women I had never seen before.”
They perked up when the actress arrived. She was prevailed upon to have a drink, then another and
another. The Dear Leader was not in mint condition; his eyes were bloodshot, and his speech was
slurred. He had apparently been drinking all night long.
“A band was performing in the front of the room,” Choi wrote. “All the girls were in their 20’s. Kim Jong
Il, drunk, gave a string of requests. Songs changed according to his request. The girls looked tired. He
asked me to conduct the band. I declined, but then the others joined in on the request: ‘Comrade Choi,
our beloved leader doesn’t let just anybody conduct the band. It’s a great honor. Do it.”’
So she did it. She soon felt ill from the alcohol, and Kim Jong Il ordered one of the women to take her
to a room upstairs to rest. She fell asleep on a sofa, but was soon woken by a senior party official. “I
felt lips on my cheek,” she recalled. She slapped the official and told him to get lost.
Accounts of this sort gave the impression, outside North Korea, that Kim Jong Il was no more
competent to take charge of his homeland than Hugh Hefner. Now, however, his bacchanalian ways
are being viewed from a different, subtler perspective. As anyone who has spent time with South
Korean or Japanese politicians knows, boozing and womanizing are an integral part of their political
culture. Your drinking buddy is your political ally. It is the equivalent, in Tokyo and Seoul, of jogging
with George W. Bush. Bonds are forged; loyalties, rewarded.
While at high school, Kim Jong Il had a close friend whose older brother was married to a particularly
attractive young woman, Sung Hae Rim. At the time she was 19. Kim noticed her beauty, as teenage
boys do, but nothing came of it until he graduated from college and, while working at the central
committee, immersed himself in a passion that would remain with him for the rest of his life: movies.
He often visited Pyongyang’s main film studio to watch movies and visit sets. He would later receive
credit for producing at least a half dozen films and musicals, and he wrote two books, “On the Art of
Cinema” and “Kim Jong Il on the Art of Opera” (both works are sold at Amazon.com).
During one visit to the studio, he again noticed Sung Hae Rim, who had become an actress and was
usually cast in the role of a heroine. One thing led to another, and Kim fell in love. Inconveniently,
Sung Hae Rim was married and had a child, but according to her sister, Sung Hae Rang, who
defected in 1996 and recently published a memoir in Korean, Kim forced Sung to leave her husband
and live with him.
It was a strange and tragic situation. Kim could not marry Sung because of her previous marriage, her
child and the fact that she was six years his senior; in a Confucian society, a match of that sort would
be frowned upon, especially for a man who was to inherit a nation. Kim did not even feel safe telling
his strait-laced father about his new love; the affair could bump him off the fast track to succession.
According to Sung Hae Rang’s memoir, which is called “Wisteria House,” her sister was moved to one
of Kim’s secluded villas and rarely traveled outside of it. In 1971, she became pregnant. This posed a
logistical inconvenience, because Kim could not visit the hospital where she gave birth. To do so
would reveal to prying eyes that he was the father of an illegitimate child.
Sung’s sister wrote that Kim and Sung arranged a covert system to inform him of his child’s birth and
its sex. Kim parked his car outside the hospital every night she was there and flicked his lights on and
off to signal that it was he. Once the baby was born, Sung signaled back the birth of the child and its
sex by flicking the room’s light on and off in a prearranged sequence.
The child was a boy, and he was named Kim Jong Nam. Within a few years of his birth, Sung Hae Rim
began suffering insomnia and other nervous disorders. She was sent to Moscow for treatment at
sanitariums and spent most of the remainder of her life there; she died in Russia in 2002. When her
sister left for Moscow, Sung Hae Rang was put in charge of the boy’s upbringing. Though it became
known in Pyongyang that he was Kim Jong Il’s son, Kim Jong Nam remained cloistered at different
villas and was eventually sent with Song Hae Rang and her son, Lee Il Nam, to Geneva, where Kim
Jong Nam was enrolled at a private school. Lee Il Nam disappeared from Geneva and emerged later
in Seoul. He wrote a memoir about his life in the Dear Leader’s household, and in 1997 he was killed
in what South Korean officials say was an assassination by North Korean agents.
The palace intrigue had other chapters. Kim Il Sung became aware of Kim Jong Il’s affair and
disapproved of it. In the early 70’s, he ordered his son to marry Kim Young Sook, the daughter of a
senior military official. Although Kim Jong Il does not spend much time with his “official” wife, she has
remained loyal to him. She is not considered a power broker. She bore a daughter by Kim; the
daughter has played no role in politics.
Kim soon fell for yet another woman, Ko Young Hee, a dancer who caught his eye when her troupe
performed at one of his parties. A delicate beauty, she was from a family of Koreans who had lived in
Japan and immigrated to North Korea in the 1960’s. Kim could not wed her – he was already married,
after all – so he housed her in still another of his villas. She soon bore him two sons, and last year she
was spoken of publicly – and favorably – in the North Korean media, suggesting that her sons were
rising in official esteem. Early this month, however, a Japanese newspaper reported that Ko Young
Hee was seriously injured in a car crash.
In 2001, Kim Jong Nam was detained at Narita airport, outside Tokyo, as he was trying to enter the
country with two women and a 4-year-old boy on a fraudulent passport from the Dominican Republic.
He said he just wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland. He was expelled to China. Because, in part, of this
embarrassment, Kim Jong Nam is no longer considered a front-runner for succession; two North
Korea watchers in Seoul told me that he lives in China and is afraid to return to North Korea. It now
appears that Kim Jong Chul, 22, the Dear Leader’s son by his mistress Ko Young Hee, is first in line
for succession.
At 8 in the morning on July 26, 2001, a five-car train rolled into Khasan, which is on the Russian side
of the border between Russia and North Korea. A carpeted platform was brought to the main car, and
when its door opened, Kim Jong Il emerged, waving and smiling to the officials assembled at the
station. Kim was embarking on the longest foreign trip in his adult life, a 24-day rail odyssey across
Russia.
Journalists scrambled to various cities on the itinerary – Khabarovsk, Omsk, St. Petersburg and
Moscow – hoping to catch a glimpse of the mysterious North Korean. Few of them succeeded,
because Kim was kept far apart from inquiring eyes. He traveled in an armored rail car, with a
locomotive seven minutes ahead to make sure the track was safe and another locomotive several
minutes behind to make sure nobody could commandeer a train and ram it into the rear of the Dear
Leader’s caravan.
For the Russians who escorted Kim, the trip offered the first prolonged encounter foreigners would
have with him. The informal silence about the trip lasted for more than a year, until Konstantin
Pulikovsky, a presidential envoy who headed the Russian delegation escorting Kim, published a
memoir in Russian about the journey. This led other officials to discuss it, including Georgy Toloraya, a
diplomat who had been based in North Korea and speaks fluent Korean.
The Dear Leader, it turns out, does not travel third class. His train was stocked with live lobster,
French wine and fresh pastries, and his entourage included four young women who entertained him
and his companions by singing songs in Korean and Russian. One car was a meeting room with two
flat-panel screens, one for films (videos of military parades were among his favorites) and the other for
a satellite-updated map of the train’s progress, much like the ones in airplane cabins.
Kim visited an array of sites, including a pig farm, a brewery, a space firm and the Hermitage Museum.
He even went to a department store in Khabarovsk, where he stopped at the perfume department and
asked where the scents came from. He spent a few minutes in the beauty salon and also visited the
sports department, where skis and sportswear were sold; he rubbed the fabrics to assess their quality.
In the men’s-wear department, he inquired why some pants had cuffs and some didn’t, and he
seemed surprised at the cost of Italian shoes – about $400.
“Do people here really buy such expensive shoes?” he asked.
For the Russians, Kim’s rail odyssey confirmed what they had been thinking of the Dear Leader – that
he is smart and wants to reform his country’s failed economy, but does not wish to lose power. “When
I read somewhere that he is a madman who doesn’t understand what he is doing – that is laughable
stuff,” said Toloraya, the Russian diplomat who was on the train and met Kim on several dozen
occasions. Toloraya is now the Russian consul general in Sydney, and I interviewed him on the
phone. “He is a professional in state governance. What he does is very well prepared. It would be a
mistake to think of him as an impossible, unpredictable character. He is an emotional person, but he is
a professional. He knows what he is doing. He plans several steps ahead.”
The Russians weren’t the only ones getting to know the charms and wishes of the Dear Leader. Kim’s
coming-out to the rest of the world included, in October 2000, an unprecedented visit to North Korea
by an American delegation led by Secretary of State Albright. This was in the waning days of the
Clinton administration, before the 1994 nuclear agreement fell apart, and Albright wanted to sound out
Kim on a plan for ending his missile-production program; Kim, in return, wanted Clinton to visit
Pyongyang.
The Americans were in for some surprises.
The North Koreans had promised that Albright would see Kim, but when she arrived in Pyongyang, her
schedule did not include a meeting with him. Her delegation was whisked into the city in the early
morning, to the guest house where they would stay, and shortly afterward they were taken on a tour
that many foreign visitors go through in Pyongyang, highlighted – that may not be the right word – by a
visit to the tomb of Kim Il Sung.
At lunch, Albright was abruptly told she would meet Kim in the afternoon. The delegation was driven to
his guest house, and as Albright stood in front of a huge mural depicting a storm at sea, Kim walked
in, greeting her with both hands extended forward. They were about the same height, Albright in her
heels and Kim in his platform shoes.
He poured on the charm. Kim asked Albright if she had seen any recent films, and when she replied
“Gladiator,” Kim said he had seen “Amistad,” which he described as “very sad.” He proudly told Wendy
Sherman, who was in Pyongyang as special adviser to Clinton on North Korea: “I own all the Academy
Award movies. I’ve watched them all.”
Smart as he is, Kim lives in a different world and doesn’t always realize it. One evening, the Albright
delegation was shepherded into a stadium in Pyongyang, where they were seated next to Kim. For the
next two hours the Americans were treated to a “mass game” – a fantasia of synchronized gymnastics
on the stadium floor and card-turning displays on the opposite side of the stadium. The exactitude of
these “games” is terrifying. They are often staged on important national occasions; dignitaries from
friendly countries were invited to a particularly spectacular display to mark Kim Jong Il’s birthday last
year. I attended a mass game display in Pyongyang in 1989, and the sensation a Westerner feels is
not artistic appreciation but totalitarian horror.
One card montage performed for Albright showed a North Korean missile being launched into the sky.
It was an odd display for Americans who were negotiating a cessation of missile production and
research. But Kim, ever the showman, turned to Albright on his right and said, “That was our first
missile launch and our last.” To make sure his message got through, he turned to Sherman on his left
and repeated his statement. The meaning was clear: the missile program can be stopped if you offer
us a new relationship. “This was totally orchestrated, the cards and turning to us,” Sherman said when
I spoke with her at the Washington office of the Albright Group, a consulting firm. “For all I know, that
was the purpose of taking us to the stadium.”
Albright and Sherman returned to Washington convinced that Kim Jong Il’s stated intentions should be
put to the test: he should be offered a new relationship with the U.S. government, including a visit by
Clinton to North Korea, if he was willing to submit to a verifiable agreement on halting missile
research, production, deployment and exports. This was a position that critics would certainly attack as
appeasement, but for Albright and Sherman, it was a price worth paying to end the North Korean
missile threat.
“I have no illusions about Kim,” Sherman said. “He’s charming but totally controlling. He is a leader
who has left his people with no freedom, no choices, no food, no future. People are executed. There
are labor camps. But the decision we have to make is whether to try to deal with him to open the
country so that the people of North Korea do have freedom, do have choices, do have food. Do I think
it would be preferable to not deal with him? Yes, but the consequences are horrible, so you have to
deal with him.”
The clock ran out. There wasn’t enough time before Clinton left office to negotiate the agreements that
would need to be in place before Air Force One could take off for North Korea. The momentum halted
with the advent of the Bush administration. But now, with the second round of six-party talks nearing,
the Americans are trying to figure out once again whether and how to deal with Kim.
–
Choe Hak Rae, the former newspaper publisher, remains hopeful. The way he sees it, Kim Jong Il
knows his economy has failed and wants to reform it. Signs of change in the north are already evident:
some prices have been deregulated, farmers’ markets have been established and North Korean
officials have been dispatched to foreign countries to learn about business. The bear wants to get out
of its cage, Choe says. “The more he is regarded as the worst person of the century, the more he will
become a dangerous man,” Choe told me. “But if safety and security are guaranteed for himself and
North Korea, I don’t think he will be a danger.”
Wendy Sherman is more cautious, but she and other advocates of engagement say that Kim believes,
erroneously, that he can control the tempo and impact of opening up to the rest of the world. It is not
clear yet whether her point of view has much traction in the Bush administration, which veers from
warlike hostility to occasional murmurs of peaceful coexistence if Kim disarms.
The notion that a dictator like Kim can be coaxed to reform has no real historical precedent. The most
notable totalitarian regimes of the modern era – the ones developed by Stalin in the Soviet Union and
by Mao Zedong in China – were not reformed by the men who shaped them. Reform of such states
requires a degree of repudiation that the authors of failure are loath to tolerate, mostly out of fear for
their own survival. In essence, proponents of engagement hope Kim will begin a process that will lead
to his downfall. It seems doubtful that he will be sufficiently selfless or stupid to do that.
The disarmament question is even stickier. The administration has waged two pre-emptive wars on
countries it deemed to be enemies – Afghanistan and Iraq. It does not require Kissingerian smarts to
calculate that a member of the axis of evil would be death-wish foolish to relinquish the weapons of
mass destruction that may be the only thing, by virtue of the horrible implications of their use, that
stands in the way of an American attack. The real issue isn’t whether Kim is crazy enough to amass a
nuclear arsenal but whether he is crazy enough to dispossess himself of his one bargaining chip.
What is the solution? I decided to seek out a man who knows Kim Jong Il better than anyone else
outside North Korea: Hwang Jang Yop. Hwang was the Karl Rove of North Korea for more than three
decades, creating the ideology of Juche, or self-sufficiency, that was the bedrock of Kim Il Sung’s
regime and remains in place today – though in name only, since North Korea depends on foreign aid
for its survival. Working at the center of the regime, Hwang learned what Kim Jong Il wants, what he
can do and what he will not do.
On a Saturday morning in August, I went with my interpreter to a private club in Seoul, where I met
Cho Gab Je, a prominent conservative journalist who edits a magazine, the Monthly Chosun, that is
known for its hard-hitting coverage of North Korea. We got into a sedan and drove to an office building
in a suburb of the city; Cho is friendly with Hwang and arranged for me to meet him. I agreed to not
provide details of the building or its location, other than to say that the anteroom is guarded by a
number of armed security agents and that you must pass through a metal detector before entering
Hwang’s office. Hwang’s caution is understandable: North Korea is believed to have agents in the
South who would be eager to silence their homeland’s most famous traitor.
Hwang is 80 and hard of hearing; I sat in an armchair to his immediate left. He is small and thin and
was dressed in a dark blue suit and blue tie. He is not particularly warm with visitors or, it would seem,
with anybody. Though he lived a privileged life in North Korea – he had a phone at his home, ample
food and a car, and he traveled extensively outside the country – his defection has brought doom onto
his family. His wife is rumored to have committed suicide after his defection, as did his daughter, who
is said to have jumped out of a bus that was taking her to a prison camp. It is assumed that his other
children and grandchildren are in prison camps, if they are still alive.
He does not talk about his personal life, but he does talk about the Dear Leader.
“If I were to go into details, it would take many days,” he said. “As a politician or leader who can work
for the development of the state and the happiness of the people, he is an F student, a dropout. But as
a dictator he has an excellent ability. He can organize people so that they can’t move, can’t do
anything, and he can keep them under his ideology. As far as I know, the present North Korean
dictatorial system is the most precise and thorough in history.”
Hwang says that he believes foreign aid has helped Kim by providing the resources he needs to retain
the loyalty of his core constituencies – the military and party elites. Hwang says he does not believe
Kim would ever allow foreign aid and investment to benefit the people who need it; Kim has shown no
interest in his people’s material well-being, and given the choice between regime survival and national
prosperity, it’s pretty clear which he would prefer. A few years ago, Kim began letting South Koreans
visit the north, and this was seen as a relaxation of the isolation of his information-starved subjects.
But the tourists, whose visits provide much-needed hard currency to the regime, are shepherded in
quarantinelike conditions that make them virtual prisoners; contact with ordinary North Koreans is nil.
Hwang says outsiders are naive to believe that Kim is ready to open up his country.
“South Korea is being fooled, and the Chinese, who should know best,” he said. “A considerable
number of people are being fooled, including the United States.”
Hwang’s synopsis of Kim’s dictatorship reminded me of a passage from his memoir. He wrote about a
1992 banquet that Kim presided over in Pyongyang; a dance troupe provided lavishly choreographed
entertainment.
The performance “was enough to elicit disgust when seen through the eyes of people with healthy
minds,” Hwang wrote, recalling that he nonetheless applauded vigorously for the entertainers. A
professor who was next to him was flummoxed.
“Are you clapping because you really enjoy the performance?” the professor asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Hwang replied. “Just clap like mad. It’s an order.”
Kim’s hold on power depends not only on his willingness to impose misery upon his people but also on
the willingness of the North Korean elite to accept their privileges and say nothing. Many North
Koreans are well aware of the repressed and backward state of their homeland and wish it were
otherwise; recent visitors say North Koreans quietly express a desire for greater contact with the
outside world. The problem is that none of them are prepared to force or even nudge their wishes
upon Kim Jong Il. The Dear Leader understands, as smart tyrants do, that perpetual clapping is
generated by terror. That is why he works 20 hours a day to make sure the applause of fear does not
stop.
When his regime is brought to an end, as one day it will be, the cause will not be his napping. Kim has
had plenty of time, and he has worked hard, to insulate himself from the type of events that have led to
the collapse of other tyrannies and dynasties. But the downfall of dictators is unpredictable. The
collapse of the Soviet Union, the dissolution of its Eastern European brethren, the easing of Maoist
discipline in China – these happened in ways that were not foreseen. It is very likely, too, that the
unimaginable will get Kim Jong Il in the end.
http://www.guardian.co.uk
The producer from hell
The North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il has a passion for cinema. But he could never find a director to
realise his vision. So he kidnapped one from the South, jailed him and fed him grass, then forced him
to shoot a socialist Godzilla. Now, for the first time, Shin Sang-ok tells the full story of his bizarre
dealings with – and eventual flight from – the world's most dangerous dictator. By John Gorenfeld
John Gorenfeld, 4 April 2003
"The task set before the cinema today is one of contributing to people's development into true
communists... This historic task requires, above all, a revolutionary transformation of the practice of
directing." Kim Jong Il's On the Art of the Cinema (1973)
"What a wretched fate," Shin Sang-ok, now 77, remembers thinking after the meeting with the pudgy
man in the grey Mao jacket. "I hated communism, but I had to pretend to be devoted to it, to escape
from this barren republic. It was lunacy."
Shin is a film director of legendary stature in his native country – the Orson Welles of South Korea. He
modernised movies at a time when people hungered for art, for escape, following the Korean war. He
and his wife, the well-known actress Choi Eun-hee, were among Seoul's celebrity set.
But, in 1978, he fell foul of the frequently repressive government of General Park Chung Hee, who
closed his studio. After making at least 60 movies in 20 years, Shin's career appeared to be over.
What followed, according to Kingdom of Kim, Shin's memoir, was an experience that revived his
career in an unbelievable way. Shin and his wife were kidnapped by North Korea's despot-in-training,
Kim Jong-il, who sought to create a film industry that would allow him to sway a world audience to the
righteousness of the Korea Workers' Party. Shin would be his propagandist, Choi his star.
North Korean apparatchiks have tried to cast doubt on Shin's story, claiming he willingly defected to
North Korea and absconded with millions. But Korea experts find Shin's story believable. Eric
Heginbotham, a senior fellow at the US Council on Foreign Relations, is one of many
Kim-watchers who say it's consistent with what is known about the regime. Pyongyang now admits it
captured 11 Japanese citizens in the late 1970s and 1980s to act as cultural advisers. Several died in
captivity, some in suicides.
Shin's story is as fantastical as many of his movies. He writes of being caught trying to escape, and
spending four years in an all-male prison camp as a result, left to assume that his wife was dead.
Then, just as suddenly, he was brought into the inner sanctum of Kim Jong-il, the would-be successor
to his father, Kim Il-sung, who ruled the country for nearly 50 years. Shin's talents then officially fell to
the service of North Korea, and he made seven movies before he and his wife made a breathtaking
escape in Vienna in 1986.
Few have escaped to tell of the habits of the North Korean man who is now the most dangerous
dictator in the world – armed with nuclear and chemical weapons, and seemingly touched by
madness. There is more than a passing resemblance between Kim and the insatiable Pulgasari, the
communist Godzilla rip-off that Shin, at Kim's request, created for North Korean audiences, which has
become a camp curiosity for monster movie aficionados.
Shin says that shortly after arriving in Pyongyang, he made several attempts to escape, and was
punished with four years at Prison No 6, where he lived on a diet of grass, salt, rice and party
indoctrination – "tasting bile all the time," he writes. "I experienced the limits of human beings."
Then, in 1983, he and his wife were released and reunited at a reception thrown by Kim Jong-il. Over
soft drinks, the top party official finally, incredibly, explained why they were there. "The North's filmmakers are just doing perfunctory work. They don't have any new ideas," Kim told the couple.
"Their works have the same expressions, redundancies, the same old plots. All our movies are filled
with crying and sobbing. I didn't order them to portray that kind of thing." The couple were stunned.
By 1978, Kim had become disgusted with his Mount Paektu Creative Group studio. Although the
studio was run on the "monolithic guidance" of party groupthink, Kim told Shin he felt a "profound
disappointment" with their work.
In the 1960s, Kim Il-sung's propaganda machine had created Sea of Blood and The Flower Girl, films
that, while regarded as tedious and crude by South Koreans, were products the North was quite proud
of, and were based on revolutionary operas.
Sea of Blood is a war hagiography that gives Kim Il-sung exaggerated credit for victories over Japan in
the 1930s. Recently it was still being shown widely in North Korea. Like Titanic and its schmaltzy My
Heart Will Go On, Sea of Blood produced a hit song: My Heart Will Remain Faithful.
"Films should contain musical masterpieces like these," Kim Jong-il writes in his book, "the fusion of
noble ideas and burning passion." He spends most of the book entreating actors and directors, whom
he compares to generals, to master their craft. How? Sheer party loyalty.
"Actors must be ideologically prepared before acquiring high-level skills," he writes, recommending a
kind of communist method acting. "No revolutionary actor has ever actually been a Japanese
policeman or capitalist . . . To effectively embody the hateful enemy, the actor requires an ardent love
of his class and a burning hostility towards the enemy."
Kim's book also suggests that film-makers draw from real life, avoid creating unrealistic movies about
"the colourful lives of flamboyant characters". And he reveals: "In the final analysis, a director who pins
his hopes on finding a 'suitable actor' is taking a gamble in his creative work. And no director who
relies on luck in creative work has ever achieved real success."
During the same period, in South Korea, Shin Sang-ok's studio, Shin Films, had produced a number of
box-office hits, including My Mother and the Roomer. He is best known for a 1968 historical drama
called The Eunuch, about concubines and emasculated servants unable to consummate their secret
love.
A popular theme in Shin's films – not unlike the Hollywood weepies of the 1950s – concerns the plight
of women chafing under the limits of society's expectations, such as The Evergreen Tree (1961), in
which Choi played a reform-minded woman struggling against provincialism to teach rural children
how to read and write.
"Though this film does not directly express class consciousness," writes Korean film critic Kwak HyunJa, "the dedication and faith in the people might be the reason this movie was praised and used as a
textbook for acting in North Korea."
Ten years after writing that book, the playboy author of On the Art of the Cinema sat across the glass
table from Shin and Choi, two real film-makers. He blamed misunderstandings by thoughtless officials
for their unfriendly four-year North Korean welcome. He also apologised for taking so long to get back
to them personally, saying it had been busy at the office.
The idea came to Kim, he said, when he heard that Seoul's repressive, militaristic Park regime had
closed down Shin Films.
"I thought, 'I've got to bring him here'," he said. Infiltrating Shin Films with agents posing as business
partners, Kim explained how he lured the two to Repulse Bay, Hong Kong. First Choi disappeared on
a trip to discuss an acting job. Then, on the way to dinner one night, Shin had a sack filled with a
chloroform-like substance pulled over his head. With that, Kim had imported the best film talent the
peninsula had to offer.
But Choi had come to the meeting with Kim prepared, according to her husband's memoir. She had
purchased a cassette recorder at a nearby market for the party inner circle, and smuggled it past the
guards of Kim's lair. It lay in her handbag, and before it came to a stop, it taped 45 minutes of the
dictator laying out his plans for the two: to serve as role models for his industry, and claim they came
to the North for the creative freedom.
To both Shin and Choi, the cassette of Kim's 45-minute talk was the key to a safe return home – but
posed severe dangers as well. "It was a matter of life or death," Shin said later, in an interview with a
South Korean magazine. They faced execution if the tape was found.
In North Korea, there are strict rules against recording or filming the top leaders of the party. After the
couple had been released, the tapes were eventually broadcast in South Korea. But coming home
was a long way away.
For now, Shin Films was back open for business – this time in Pyongyang.
"Shall we make Mr Shin one of our regular guests?" Kim asked the crowd at a birthday party for one of
his generals, after Shin's career, and life, was given its new lease. A lot of cognac was being drunk.
The general in question was boasting that he could take Pusan in a week, tops. Military men marched
in a circular review, saluting Kim.
On stage, a bevy of young women jumped up and down screaming: "Long live the great leader!" Most
jarring of all was when Kim shook his arm and pointed at the display of fawning, saying: "Mr Shin, all
that is bogus. It's just pretence."
This puzzling confession, Shin writes, lingered in his mind as he drove in a Mercedes to the new office
of Shin Films. Soon he'd be entrusted with an annual pay cheque of $3m for personal or professional
use, even as he formulated an escape plan. By following the advice for directors in On the Art of the
Cinema – "Be loyal to the party and prove yourselves worthy of the trust it places in yourself" – he
would hope for some opportunity to escape, maybe during a trip to an Eastern bloc film festival.
Sometimes resigned to his stay, Shin took comfort in his increasing material well-being, and in making
movies again. When it came to choosing subject matter, he told the Seoul Times in 2001 that there
were "fewer restrictions than is commonly believed". He said he even introduced the first kiss to the
military-centric North Korean cinema.
All ideas, however, were approved by Kim Jong-il as arms of his ideology, and were developed in
story conferences with him. The dictator wanted to make crossover movies that would simultaneously
project a fearsome image to the world while somehow improving how North Korea was perceived.
Shin was free to fly to east Berlin for location shots – though shadowed by ever-present escorts. He
recalls walking past the US embassy with his wife, who tugged at his sleeve and made a face
suggesting they run for it.
"What's the matter with you?" he hissed. "I will not make an attempt unless it's 100% certain. If they
caught us, we'd be dead."
Besides, he was taking his new career seriously, and was eager to get work done. He even claims that
in 1984 he was able to produce the finest film of his career: Runaway, the tragic story of a wandering
Korean family of 1920s Manchuria coping with Japanese oppression and the dishonesty of their
neighbours.
After that, however, came a very different kind of movie. Loosely based on a legend of the 14thcentury Koryo monarchy, Pulgasari owes much to Godzilla. Shin invited some monster-movie veterans
from Japan to come to his studio, which had swelled to 700 employees, to help with the picture.
When Kim guaranteed their safety, they came to work on Pulgasari, including Kempachiro Satsuma,
the second actor to wear the Godzilla suit, who soon dressed up as the lumbering, google-eyed
Pulgasari.
Pulgasari is a monster of the people. When the wicked king oppresses the people, a jailed blacksmith
moulds a tiny character out of rice, declaring he will use the last spark of his creative power to bring
the doll to life.
As the farmers are starving under the king's rule, the doll, Pulgasari, eats iron and grows. The
cherubic toddler Pulgasari soon becomes a horned beast whose clawed foot is the size of a person.
And since this is a movie made under the guidelines of On the Art of the Cinema, there are seemingly
endless shots of the people's folk dances.
Finally, Pulgasari leads the farmers' army in an assault on the king's fortress – and against thousands
of North Korean military troops who were mobilised and dressed up as extras. Ultimately, the king
uses his experimental anti-Pulgasari weapon, the lion gun. But the enterprising Pulgasari swallows the
missile and shoots it back at his oppressors. Finally, the king is crushed beneath a huge falling
column.
Then the movie becomes curiously ambiguous. The beloved Pulgasari turns on his own people. Still
hungry for iron after his victory, Pulgasari begins eating the people's tools. The confusing conclusion
seems to find salvation in the spirit of the people.
When the blacksmith's daughter tearfully pleads with Pulgasari to "go on a diet", he seems to find his
conscience, and puzzlingly shatters into a million slow-motion rocks. Then, inexplicably, a glowing blue
Pulgasari child is born, waddling out of the ocean. It's a terrifically bad movie.
On one hand, Pulgasari is a cautionary tale about what happens when the people leave their fate in
the hands of the monster, a capitalist by dint of his insatiable consumption of iron. But it is also
tempting to read the monster as a metaphor for Kim Il-sung, hijacking the "people's revolution" to
ultimately serve his purposes.
When the movie was delivered to Kim, he saw it as a great victory. Trucks pulled up to Shin Films to
unload pheasants, deer and wild geese for the movie crew to feast on.
Genghis Khan, or more specifically, John Wayne as Genghis Khan in the notoriously awful The
Conqueror, was the inspiration for Shin's last collaboration with Kim. Shin had long wanted to make an
authentically Mongolian or at least Asian version.
In Kim Jong-il he found a producer who shared his enthusiasm for the subject of invading hordes.
They agreed that this follow-up to Pulgasari would make a good export, even if it didn't meet with the
approval of Kim's father as a tool for thought control.
Plans were made for a joint venture with a company in Austria to distribute the film. Soon, Kim trusted
the director to travel to western Europe for a business meeting. As a trip to Vienna approached, Shin
writes, a plan began to form. They had no doubts about wanting to leave their comfortable lifestyle.
"To be in Korea living a good life ourselves and enjoying movies while everyone else was not free was
not happiness, but agony," he writes. Then they boarded a plane for Vienna, never to return to North
Korea.
During the trip, Shin and Choi were able to escape with the help of a Japanese movie critic friend.
Meeting him for lunch, they fled by taxi to the American embassy, shaking off one of Kim's agents in
another taxi.
After the embarrassing escape of his star propagandists, Kim Jong-il shelved Pulgasari and every
other Shin film.
The monster movie was not seen outside the country until 1998 when, amid a dawning feeling of
openness in North Korean, relations with the rest of Asia, another Japanese critic campaigned for its
release – as an important work deserving more attention, and a source of box-office dollars for the
North's disastrous economy.
It bombed. In Seoul, a total of about 1,000 people saw it during its limited release.
Shin Sang-ok remains controversial. At the Pusan International film festival in 2001, a screening was
planned for his favorite work, Runaway. But the public prosecutor of Seoul halted the showing by
invoking South Korea's harsh national security law, which bans any action that could benefit the North.
Shin has worked hard to dispel any impression that he remains friends with his ex-executive producer.
In an open letter to the South Korean president following the September 11 attacks, he wrote that his
first reaction to the World Trade Centre collapse was that it was in Kim Jong-il's nature to do the same
to Seoul.
Kim Jong-il continues to issue bold words of guidance to his film-makers. His words are reprinted on a
gigantic placard outside the Revolutionary Museum of the Ministry of Culture on the outskirts of
Pyongyang: "Make more cartoons."
2003 Salon.com, Inc.