Category: Jang Song Thaek purge

American intelligence admits it has no idea what Kim Jong-un is doing

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Almost all of the conventional wisdom from American intelligence agencies about North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has been wrong, Peter Sanger of The New York Times reports.

When Kim became supreme leader two years ago, U.S. intel thought his China-allied uncle would guide his transition to power. In December, Kim had his uncle and some of his allies executed.

The U.S. thought Kim would focus on an economic overhaul of the meager economy instead of further development of military programs. Instead, Kim has chosen to continue testing ballistic missiles, working toward an intercontinental missile that could threaten the U.S., in addition to promoting the North’s nuclear program, special operations forces, and long-range artillery.

As former State Department North Korea specialist Evans J. R. Revere told The Times: “We have failed. For two decades our policy has been to keep the North Koreans from developing nuclear weapons. It’s now clear there is no way they will give them up, no matter what sanctions we impose, no matter what we offer. So now what?”

Basically, the Hermit Kingdom has defied American expectations, and now the U.S. doesn’t know what to do about it.

Further, American spies are in the dark. The Washington Post, citing the leaked “black budget” of the U.S. intelligence community, reported last year that “there are five ‘critical’ gaps in U.S. intelligence about Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs, and analysts know virtually nothing about the intentions of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.”

[Stamford Advocate]

8 ways Kim Jong-Un has blindsided the US

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When Kim Jong-un took power in December 2011, many experts saw his ascent as an opportunity for the West to transform the last bastion of hard-line communism, believing that the untested leader would shy away from confrontation with the U.S. and even South Korea.

Instead, North Korea’s leader has “proved to be more ruthless, aggressive and tactically skilled than anyone expected,” Peter Sanger of The New York Times reports. Here are a few things North Korea’s supreme leader has done in the past 18 months to surprise and unnerve the U.S.:
1. The U.S. expected Kim to ease up on obtaining a nuke, but North Korea conducted a third nuclear test in February 2013. Kim is expanding the production of highly enriched uranium to get a more plentiful supply of nuclear fuel, and recently threatened to conduct “a new form of nuclear test.”
2. When the world thought that any North Korean rocket launch would be a farce, the North launched a rocket 1,600 miles in December 2012. The event is suspected of being a test for long-range ballistic missiles.
3. In April 2013, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency said it believed the North had learned how to make a “low-reliability” nuclear weapon small enough to be delivered by a ballistic missile.
4. “Defense officials say they now have less warning time on missile launches than they had two or three years ago because Mr. Kim has put his resources into mobile launchers that are regularly moved from tunnel to tunnel, making them harder for American satellites to track.” – New York Times
5. President Obama had been told that Kim’s uncle Jang Song-thaek would keep Kim in check, but Kim executed Jang, who was seen as an experienced diplomat with close ties to China.
6. While many waited for the North’s economy to collapse under sanctions, Kim has developed an underground illicit economy.
7. China, the world’s second-largest economy, has Kim’s back: Beijing recently rejected a damning report about horrific human-rights abuses by Kim’s regime, provides it with military hardware, and reportedly holds a trust fund for the young leader in Chinese banks.
8. Despite bans on military hardware, North Korea probably has drones to spy on South Korea, and the technology will get only better.

[Business Insider]

Powerful aunt of Kim Jong-un disappears from official footage

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The aunt of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has mysteriously disappeared from a re-run of a propaganda film, leading to speculation that she has been purged – or even executed.

Kim Kyong Hui

Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported that while the original screening featuring Ms Kim (as shown circled above), a re-run shown on Tuesday depicts a scene in which only Kim Jong-un, his wife, and male military officials are visible.

Kim Kyong-hui, 67, is the widow of Jang Song-taek who was recently executed. It was believed she would always remain ‘safe’ under her nephew’s brutal regime, leading analysts to say that her disappearance from the documentary is ominous. Ms Kim’s safety from purging or execution had always been assumed because she is the daughter of North Korean founder Kim Il-sun and the sister of the late leader, Kim Jong-il. Despite all this, Ms Kim is still associated with a husband who was publicly denounced as a traitor and executed in December.

Until January this year, Ms Kim was frequently seen at the side of her nephew and his wife at public events. In the footage in question, which aired in January, she was seen walking with the leader and his wife towards the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun in the capital, Pyongyang, to pay tribute to the embalmed bodies of former leaders Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il.

The apparent ‘disappearance’ of Kim Kyong-hui has led to speculation that her place in high positions in the Workers’ Party has been taken by Kim Jong-un’s younger sister, Yo-jong.

U.S. envoy calls for break in North Korean information control

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Robert King, the special U.S. envoy on North Korean human rights, has called for more efforts to bring the people of North Korea in contact with the wider world by weakening the regime’s information blockade.

In a lecture at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, King said, “We must work to break down North Korea’s government monopoly on the control of information and work together to increase North Koreans’ exposure to ideas, conditions and reality of the world beyond the borders of North Korea.”

Only some 15,000 people are allowed access to the Internet and need to obtain permission to visit different websites.

King cited a survey among North Korean defectors in South Korea and abroad, which revealed that 34 percent of people in North Korea regularly listen to foreign radio broadcasts.

He said he heard that a busy and rowdy restaurant in Pyongyang suddenly went silent when news of the execution of Jang Song-thaek came. With so much fear instilled in their minds, North Koreans are very “cautious about rising up and doing something” about their human right situations, he added.

[Chosun Ilbo]

North Korean government purge continues

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North Korea has sacked its commerce minister, according to state-run media, as its young leader Kim Jong-Un apparently seeks to sideline supporters of his once-powerful uncle who was executed last year.

North Korea’s radio broadcaster Pyongyang Broadcasting Station said that new Commerce Minister Kim Kyong-Nam took part in a food festival marking the birth anniversary of the country’s founder Kim Il-Sung. It was the first time that North Korean media introduced him as commerce minister, but it was likely that his predecessor Ri Song-Ho was replaced last month.

It remains unclear why Ri was replaced but his ouster comes as Pyongyang has reportedly been purging officials linked to Jang Song-Thaek, once the North’s unofficial number two and Kim’s political mentor. Ri is the latest North Korean cabinet member to be sacked since Jang’s execution. North Korea reportedly replaced its mining minister and metal industry minister in January.

Jang was executed in December on an array of charges including treason and corruption, marking the biggest political upheaval since the young ruler took power after the death of his father and the former leader, Kim Jong-il, in 2011.

[MSN]

More on the father of Choe Ryong-Hae having done what Kim Il-sung claimed

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According to sources quoted in South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo, one of the most powerful figures in Pyongyang is expected to fall victim to Kim Jong-un’s purges, as the North Korean leader trains his sights on a rival who could expose a lie about a key moment in the communist regime’s history.

Evidence suggests that it was the father of 64-year-old Choe Ryong-Hae, the joint chairman of the all-powerful Politburo Presidium who led an attack against the Japanese later claimed by Kim’s grandfather to legitimize the ruling dynasty.  Whereas North Korea’s version of the struggle against the Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula claims that Kim Il-sung, revered as the founder of the nation, led the June 1937 assault.

Ken Kato, a researcher and human rights activist, said that the stories undermined Kim Il-sung’s reputation as the heroic father of the nation.

North Korean history about to change –again?

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New evidence from the 1930s indicate that it might have been someone else other than the grandfather of Kim Jong-Un who led a famous attack against the Japanese, an attack that has been claimed by Kim’s grandfather Kim Il-Sung that he led, so they could be the ruling family of North Korea.

If accurate, it would mean that someone else  — not the son of Jong-il — would be the rightful heir to the communist North Korean state.

A report in the Asahi Shimbun dated June 7, 1937 says it was Choe Hyon, the father of Choe Ryong-Hae current joint chairman of the powerful Politburo Presidium and political director of the North Korea People’s Army, who actually led the attack. The report reads in part: ‘A little more than 100 men lead by Communist bandit Choe Hyon attacked Pochonbo. ….”

The grandfather of Kim Jong-Un, Kim Il-Sung, is documented in North Korea’s official history as the leader of this 1937 attack on the Japanese base defending the town of Ponchonbo, which helped him gain a foothold of legitimacy in the claim of leadership of the country.

So Choe Ryong-Hae has been singled out because of these newly-revealed records, amidst rumors that Kim Jong-Un is planning another purge to rid North Korea of some of its most powerful figures.

North Korea regularly changes its own country’s history, with children in the North being taught that the Korean War was started in 1950 by an invasion by the South, and that Kim Jong-il was born in a cabin on the slopes of Mount Paektu, when historians claim that the late leader was actually born in a refugee camp in the Soviet Union.

A visible Choe Ryong belies reports of another North Korean purge

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A senior North Korean official, believed to be the No. 2 in the country after leader Kim Jong Un, has reappeared in official television footage, belying reports he had fallen victim to a fresh purge in the isolated nation.

Choe Ryong Hae is the influential head of the political wing of North Korea’s military and appears to have risen to become the second most powerful person in the country after the execution of Jang Song Thaek, Kim’s uncle, last year.

Speculation in recent weeks that Choe had also been purged triggered a wave of speculation that Kim was intent on shaking up North Korea’s elite and that competing factions around the 31-year old leader were a destabilising force in the North.

Choe’s father was a partisan who fought alongside the young Kim’s grandfather Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea.

In addition to the public title as the chief political operative for the North’s 1.2-million-strong army, Choe holds a seat in the powerful standing committee of the ruling Workers’ Party politburo shared only by Kim himself and two figurehead old guard members.

Choe is also one of the two vice chairmen of the ruling Workers’ Party central military commission, a post that encompasses two of the most powerful institutions, the party and the military. He was made a vice marshal of the military this year.

In June, Choe was Kim’s special envoy to meet President Xi Jinping of China, North Korea’s only major ally. The meeting followed displeasure expressed by Beijing after North Korea launched a missile last year and conducted a third nuclear test.

[IBTimes] 

Has Kim Jong Un purged his deputy Choe Ryong Hae?

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choe ryong hae_ri yong ho_kim jong un
[L – R] Choe Ryong Hae and North Korean military’s General Staff Chief Ri Yong Ho with Kim Jong Un in happier days
The South Korean Government is investigating reports Kim Jong Un has imposed another purge, after rumors of North Korea’s number two leader Choe Ryong Hae’s disappearance.

The statement was made by the South Korean Government on Monday after mounting speculation since last week that Choi was in jail and being interrogated.

It is assumed Choi held several top positions in the North Korean leadership after Kim ordered the high-profile execution of Jang Song Thaek, the previous incumbent and Kim’s uncle and mentor.

Rumors about Choi’s disappearance have intensified since his no-shows at public events he normally would have attended with Kim in February.

[The Times]

Jang Song-taek executed because of his “sleazy past”

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The Chosun Ilbo claims that Jang Song-taek, Kim Jong-un’s uncle, was executed chiefly for his role in overseeing a thinly-disguised prostitution ring.

This according to the Kim family’s former sushi chef, Kenji Fujimoto, who claimed Jang Song-taek was eliminated because of his role supplying young women for a “pleasure brigade” for former leader Kim Jong-il, because his son detested his father’s womanizing.

Fujimoto told the U.K.’s Daily Mail on Saturday that when Kim Jong-un returned to North Korea aged 18 from study abroad, he “found himself exposed to his father’s ‘pleasure brigade,’ ” groups of beautiful young women who sing, strip and perform massages or sexual favors.

Fujimoto added that Jong-un was shy with girls and “loathes having relationships with multiple women.”