Category: Kim Jong Un

Kim Yo-jung, Kim Jong Un’s younger sister, makes rare public appearance

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Kim Yo-jung, the younger sister of North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-un, has reportedly reappeared in public after two months out of the public eye.

Kim Yo-jung, 28, was photographed accompanying her older brother as he inspected a tree nursery operated by the army, South Korea’s Yonhap news reported.

The South Korean news site claimed that images of Kim’s sister, appearing slimmer than her past appearances and wearing a knee-length black dress with a fur collar, had prompted speculation she had recently given birth to her first child. Kim Yo-jung married a former classmate from Kim Il-sung University. Her baby was expected in May.

It has been suggested Kim, who studied in Switzerland at the same time as her brother, is Kim’s closest confidante, working alongside him as deputy director of the Worker’s Party.

The position was formerly held by her uncle, Jang Song-thaek, who was publicly executed for crimes against the state two years ago.

 [The Independent]

US to seek China’s help in pressuring North Korea on nukes

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North Korea’s claims have not been independently verified and many analysts say Pyongyang is still years away from deploying these new weapon systems. Still, there are indications that North Korea is moving steadily to develop the capability to strike the U.S. mainland or anywhere in the world with nuclear weapons.

“I don’t want to comment on intelligence matters but … it is of great concern to us that the North Koreans are continuing to pursue such capabilities. I think the intention is clear. We should be concerned,” said U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Sung Kim.

High-ranking diplomatic envoys from the U.S., South Korea, and Japan met in Seoul to discuss how to respond to North Korea’s continued efforts to develop its nuclear program.

US Ambassador Kim said it is important that Russia and China continue to support whatever approach they decide to take.  He said he will make that point clear when he meets Thursday with Chinese Special Representative Wu Dawei in Beijing.

Secretary Kerry said Kim Jong Un has rebuffed overtures from China and Russia. Both countries supported U.N. imposed sanctions against North Korea after it conducted its third nuclear test in 2013. But Beijing in particular has been reluctant to exert further pressure on Pyongyang out of concern that it might increase instability and the potential for conflict in the region. However China is reportedly growing increasingly alarmed over Kim Jong Un’s intransigence and has, according to Secretary Kerry, indicated a new willingness to explore new punitive measures against Pyongyang.

The six party talks about dismantling the North’s nuclear program in return for economic assistance and security guarantees have been on hold since 2008.

[VoA]

Extricating North Korea from the Kim family cult

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Extricating North Korea from the personality cult of the Kim family would be a genuine challenge under any circumstances.

The country’s founder, Kim Il Sung, and his son and successor, Kim Jong Il, permeate every facet of daily life. Citizens wear Kim lapel pins everywhere they go. Portraits and statuary of the father and son are everywhere. In Pyongyang at midnight every night, a ghostly dirge commemorating the elder Kim blares from loudspeakers through the darkness.

According to the U.N. commission’s findings and the testimony of many defectors, North Koreans who dare criticize the Kim family are punished severely and face horrific treatment in prison camps around the country.

North Korea says that isn’t true, and routinely accuses defectors of being “human scum” and criminals. In an interview with the AP in Pyongyang last October, two North Korean legal experts attempted to discredit the U.N. campaign and its findings “which they called an “anti-DPRK plot” and defended the prison system that has long been the core area of concern.

“In a word, the political camps do not exist in our country,” said Ri Kyong Chol, director of the international law department at Pyongyang’s Academy of Social Sciences. “The difference between the common and the anti-state criminals is that the anti-state criminals get more severe punishment than the common criminals.”

But Ri said common and anti-state inmates are not segregated. “I think every country has prisons to imprison those criminals who have committed crimes against the state,” he said. But in North Korea, “there are no different prisons for that.”

[AP]

North Korean spies at home and abroad

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To consolidate power within North Korea, Kim Jong-Un and his family run a ruthless network of spies. A former spy told CNN that North Korea’s also got legions of operatives inside the U.S. and South Korea.

To keep his spies from defecting, Kim’s regime is said to use what they call ‘anchor children.’

“Certainly an agent would be operating by him or herself in South Korea would have their family left behind, and North Korea would use that as leverage,” said Bruce Klingner of The Heritage Foundation.

Another former North Korean spy told CNN that his entire family was executed back in North Korea to punish him for not fulfilling his mission.

Agents who’ve defected have consistently said if they’re caught they’re under orders to commit suicide rather than fall into enemy hands.

[CNN]

Introducing Kim Sol-Song, the shadowy older sister of Kim Jong-Un

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Kim Jong Un’s younger sister, Kim Yo-Jong, may be on the political rise but were you aware of Kim’s shadowy older sister, Kim Sol-Song?

According to Ken Gause, a North Korea leadership expert at CAN Corporation, Kim Sol-Song is the “purest of the pure,” because she’s the only one among Kim and his siblings ever officially recognized by their grandfather, North Korea’s founder Kim Il Sung.

“She is a person who has her finger on the pulse of the regime. And she is probably helping Kim Jong Un and Kim Yo Jong in mentoring them in the relationship building that needs to be done for Kim Jong Un to be able to consolidate his power,” Gause said.

Another sibling, Kim Jong Chul, an older brother of Kim Jong-Un, recently appeared singing along at an Eric Clapton concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Kim Jong Chul has gone to Clapton concerts all over the world. He has plenty of time and money on his hands, analysts say, since he was passed over for the leadership position in favor of his younger brother.

“Kim Jong-Chul was not seen as being capable of dealing with the blood sport which is North Korean politics, especially as you move from succession period to consolidation period. And unlike his brother Kim Jong Un he was seen as being potentially too weak,” said Gause.

Now, analysts say Kim Jong Chul is in a network of children of the elites who allegedly bring in money for the regime from black market deals.

And there is another brother who was also passed over. The oldest, Kim Jong Nam, embarrassed the family in 2001 when he was caught trying to get to Tokyo’s Disneyland on a fake Dominican passport. He’s said to spend his days traveling and gambling.

But the sibling with real influence might just be Kim’s older sister, Kim Sol-Song?

[CNN]

North Korea gains foreign currency through human trafficking

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Scott Snyder, senior fellow for Korea studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said increased trafficking of its citizens is one of North Korea’s ways of earning foreign exchange.

North Korea, frequently ranked as the world’s worst human rights abuser, has lured between 50,000 and 60,000 of its citizens to work in industries around the globe with the promise they would keep their wages, according to a paper from the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights presented on Tuesday. Instead, the wages are sent to the North Korean government, generating as much as $2.3 billion per year.

Industries employing the laborers range from logging and mining to restaurants, and workers who complain or escape risk reprisal against themselves and their families who remain in North Korea, said Robert King, special envoy for North Korea Human Rights Issues at the State Department, at the House hearing.

Workers have been sent through bilateral contracts to around 40 countries, primarily Russia, China, Mongolia and nations in Africa, central Europe and the Middle East, according to a State Department Trafficking in Persons Report from March.

One defector, Lim Il, told the Lantos commission that he had been a state employee in North Korea but went to Kuwait to work at a construction company, where he was required to put in 14-hour days under strict surveillance, with two days off per month. “I think we were slave laborers,” Il said.

After escaping to the South Korean embassy, he learned that his salary had all gone to the Office of the Worker’s Party that manages foreign currency. “The money obtained through the export of laborers overseas [is] used as a personal fund for Kim Jong-un,” the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights paper said.

[MarketWatch]

Kim Jong-un’s vulnerability on display

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Two recent events have shed some light on Kim Jong-un’s leadership: first he cancelled a planned trip to Moscow and now he appears to have removed the country’s formidable defense chief. (South Korea is now saying the once-powerful general, Hyon Yong-chol, has been “purged” but “not necessarily killed”.) But both occurrences point to vulnerabilities at the very top of the DPRK.

Ongoing purges suggest that some of the elite have forgotten the volatility of the young Kim, displaying a lack of respect for the institutions that sustain him and unwillingness to indulge his need to be the focal point of all adulation.

After two years of prefatory propaganda and three years of rule, it is revealing that analysts believe his authority is in question. “Internally, there does not seem to be any respect for Kim Jong-un within the core and middle levels of the North Korean leadership,” said Michael Madden, an expert at the 38 North thinktank.

If the reports are true, why should it be necessary for Kim to send such a piercing signal by removing a man who sat not just on the expanded politburo but also the all-powerful National Defense Commission? Surely the events of December 2013, when Kim Jong-un approved the purge and execution of his own uncle, should still be fresh in minds of North Korean elites.

In such a system, it is nearly impossible for figures other than Kim to accumulate public charisma or prestige. Lacking in any actual administrative expertise, Kim has traded fully upon his bloodline as his primary credential. The young leader’s celebrated “climb” to the summit of Mount Paektu this past month is a case in point: this was an occurrence which not just the whole of the armed forces but the entire nation was expected to celebrate.

There may be reasons for Hyon’s removal other than simple disrespect – he may have said or done something to embarrass the regime in Moscow, for instance, or have made inadequate preparations for Kim’s safety on the young leader’s presumptive first foreign trip.

But given what we know about how Kim operates and how he wishes to be perceived, it is more than possible that Hyon’s basic lack of interest in the personality cult is what led to his downfall.

[The Guardian]

Brutal killing Of N. Korean Military Chief reflects Kim Jong-Un’s insecurity

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From an opinion piece by Donald Kirk, writing in Forbes:

The execution of North Korea’s military chief reflects Kim Jong Un’s deep insecurity about his grip over a recalcitrant elite of senior and mid-level officers and cadres.

Exactly what Hyon Yong-Chol, 66-year-old minister of the People’s Armed Forces, i.e., defense minister, did to incur Kim Jong-Un’s wrath is not clear, but the inference was that he had not only shown contempt for the young leader but also may have disagreed with him on crucial points.

North Korea has not announced the execution, but South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS), drawing upon a wide range of contacts, is seen as credible when it reveals such information. The question is why Kim Jong-Un would order Hyon’s extermination considering that Hyon had just returned from an international security conference in Moscow at which he was photographed displaying rows of ribbons on his chest.

The answer, in the view of Choi Jin-Wook, president of the Korea Institute of National Unification, is that Kim is feeling increasingly insecure in an amosphere of discontent in Pyongyang among many who grew to power under his father, Kim Jong-Il. Hyon’s execution, latest in an ongoing purge of top and mid-level cadres, “is a sign of the weakness of the regime,” Choi told me. “If they are strong enough, they have no reason to kill him.”

Kim Jong-un reportedly flies into rages at any sign of disagreement, much less disobedience. He has ordered at least 15 executions in recent  months and at least 75 in the past two years. according to the NIS.

Yonhap, the South Korean news agency, quoted an unnamed official who agreed there were “growing doubts about Kim’s leadership among North Korean ranking officials.” As a result, the official was quoted as saying, “Kim has deepened a reign of terror by purging them in negligence of proper procedure.”

North Korean defense chief executed on treason charges

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North Korean defense minister Hyon Yong-Chol has been executed by anti-aircraft fire for disloyalty and showing disrespect to leader Kim Jong-un, South Korea’s intelligence agency says. Hundreds of officials watched Hyon’s execution at a military academy in northern Pyongyang on April 30, Han Ki-Beom, the deputy director of the South’s National Intelligence Agency, told a parliamentary committee.

Hyon, who was appointed to the post of Minister of the People’s Armed Forces less than a year ago, was apparently caught dozing off during formal military events and also talked back to Kim on several occasions.

Han told the committee that Hyon was executed with anti-aircraft fire – a method cited in various unconfirmed reports as being reserved for senior officials whom the leadership wishes to make examples of.

If confirmed, it marks another demonstration of Kim’s ruthlessness in dealing with even the most senior officials suspected of disloyalty, following the execution of his uncle and one-time political mentor Jang Song-Thaek in 2013.

It also points to possible power struggles within the top leadership, following Kim’s decision to cancel a scheduled visit to Moscow last week in order to deal with “internal issues”.

Kim has unleashed a series of purges to tighten his grip on power in the reclusive nation after his father Kim Jong-il died in December 2011. Late last month, the South’s National Intelligence Agency reported that Kim had ordered the execution of 15 senior officials so far this year, including two vice ministers, for questioning his authority.

[Sydney Morning Herald]

North Korea claims ballistic missile launch from submarine

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North Korea said Saturday that it successfully test-fired a newly developed ballistic missile from a submarine in what would be the latest display of the country’s advancing military capabilities. Hours after the announcement, South Korean officials said the North fired three anti-ship cruise missiles into the sea off its east coast.

Experts in Seoul say North Korea’s military demonstrations and hostile rhetoric are attempts at wresting concessions from the United States and South Korea, whose officials have recently talked about the possibility of holding preliminary talks with the North to test its commitment to denuclearization.

For the second straight day, North Korea said it would fire without warning at South Korean naval vessels that it claims have been violating its territorial waters off the west coast of the Korean Peninsula.

South Korean officials previously had said that North Korea was developing technologies for launching ballistic missiles from underwater, although past tests were believed to have been conducted on platforms built on land or at sea and not from submarines. Security experts say that North Korea acquiring the ability to launch missiles from submarines would be an alarming development because missiles fired from submerged vessels are harder to detect before launch than land-based ones.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un personally directed the submarine test launching and called the missile a “world-level strategic weapon” and an “eye-opening success,” said the North’s official Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA. The report did not reveal the timing or location of the launch. Kim declared that North Korea now has a weapon capable of “striking and wiping out in any waters the hostile forces infringing upon the sovereignty and dignity of (North Korea).”

South Korea’s defense ministry have previously said that North Korea has about 70 submarines and appears to be mainly imitating Russian designs in its efforts to develop a system for submarine-launched missiles. The North is believed to have obtained several of the Soviet Navy’s retired Golf-class ballistic missile submarines in the mid-1990s.

Uk Yang, a Seoul-based security expert and an adviser to the South Korean military, said it is unlikely that North Korea possesses a submarine large enough to carry and fire multiple missiles. However, it’s hard to deny that Pyongyang is making progress on dangerous weapons technology, he said.

[Associated Press]