Category: Kim Jong Un

The Dastardly North Korean Dynasty Continues

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In addition to the tight Kim family circle, the North Korean regime is, generally speaking, composed of three elements: the security apparatus, the People’s Army, and the party. All three parts have always fed into the one man—a Kim—in the center. But Kim Jong-un has yet to gain control by placing his supporters in positions of power. More important, he has not had time to learn how to balance and rule an inherently unstable structure. The result is that he is now guided by his aunt, Kim Kyong-Hui, and her husband, Jang Song-Thaek.

He reports that, last year, powerbrokers did exactly what Kim Jong-un told them to do, but what Kim told them to do “was exactly what they told him he should tell them to do.” In short, Kim was in charge in name only. Kim Jong-nam, the ruler’s eldest brother, is on-record saying that “the existing ruling elite” will keep Jong-un “as a symbolic figure.” To attain real power, Kim Jong-un will have to do what his father did: rely on the nation’s strongest institution, the military.

The never-ending intrigue and struggle inside the army is a major factor in making the North so volatile, and troubles in the military undercut the prevailing view among Korea-watchers that Kim Jong-un has consolidated power faster than anticipated.

Bechtol’s main contribution—and it is a critical one—is drawing the line from Pyongyang’s ugly succession politics to its belligerent external behavior. Deadly incidents were executed to gain support among Kim Jong-un’s young, hardline “guardian cadres.” Attacks will probably continue, he argues, because provocations along the Northern Limit Line are not only part of the North’s asymmetric tactics to intimidate Seoul, but they help consolidate the succession, which is clearly Kim’s top priority.

Kim cannot act peacefully because to do so would undermine the beliefs, developed by his grandfather and father, that hold the ruling group together. This explains why North Korea has remained belligerent no matter who resides in the White House. Kim Jong-un is bound by the conventions established by his predecessors, which means that he cannot easily divert North Korea from its unsustainable path. In his final years, Kim Jong-il pursued “defiant” policies, especially in his development of nuclear warheads and proliferation of weapons, and the North will continue this aggressive behavior.

[From a book review by Gordon G. Chang, author of Nuclear Showdown] 

North Korean refusal to cooperate with UN rights probe

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Not surprisingly, the head of a U.N. human rights probe says he can’t get answers from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un regarding harrowing testimony from victims of the enigmatic regime, including allegations of being forced to survive on vermin, drown babies and witness the execution of loved ones.

Michael Kirby, who heads the U.N. commission examining North Korea’s human rights record, said Tuesday that his July 16 letter to the leader hasn’t been answered, and the government has offered no evidence to contradict graphic testimony of human rights abuses.

Kirby, a former judge in Australia’s highest court, told the U.N. Human Rights Council that the commission it created in March nonetheless gathered testimony from dozens of victims, including defectors, and experts at public hearings in Seoul and Tokyo last month that has “given a face and voice to great human suffering.”

Overall, the testimony “points to widespread and serious violations in all areas that the Human Rights Council asked the commission to investigate. We heard from ordinary people who faced torture and imprisonment for doing nothing more than watching foreign soap operas or holding a religious belief,” said Kirby.

For example, he said, the commission heard from a young man imprisoned from birth, who said he lived on rodents, lizards and grass and saw his mother and brother executed.

It also heard from a young woman who said she saw another female prisoner forced to drown her own baby in a bucket, Kirby said, and a man who said he was forced to help collect and burn the corpses of prisoners who died of starvation.

The U.N.’s top rights official, Navi Pillay, reported to the Council that the U.N. had amassed evidence indicating that up to 200,000 people were being held in North Korean political prison camps rife with torture, rape and slave labor, and that some of the abuses may amount to crimes against humanity.

“The commission invited the authorities of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to attend the public hearings in Seoul and make representations, but received no reply,” Kirby said.

[AP]

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Why North Korea feels they must have nuclear weapons

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Satellite images of North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear facility have again raised questions about whether the country has restarted its plutonium production reactor — regarded by western experts as a key component in the development of a nuclear weapon.

To try and get inside the heads of  the North Korean leadership, consider this excerpt of an opinion piece by Stephen Gowans as to why North Korea believes that the best chance they have for preserving their sovereignty is to build nuclear weapons to deter a US military conquest.

“One might lament Pyongyang’s nuclear testing for running counter to nuclear non-proliferation, invoking the fear that growth in the number of countries with nuclear weapons increases the risk of war. But this view crumbles under scrutiny.
• The elimination of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq didn’t reduce the chances of US military intervention in that country—it increased them.
• Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s voluntary elimination of his WMD didn’t prevent a NATO assault on Libya—it cleared the way for it.

“Among the questions North Korea may have:
• How credible could any security guarantee be, in light of the reality that since 1945 Washington has invested significant blood and treasure in eliminating all expressions of communism and anti-imperialism on the Korean peninsula.
• Why is it incumbent on North Korea alone to disarm?

“The disarming of countries that deny the US access to markets, natural resources, and investment opportunities, in order to use these for their own development, doesn’t reduce the risk of wars of conquest—it makes them all the more certain.”

The real North Korea as unfiltered by Dennis Rodman

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In The World According to Dennis Rodman, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, whom he just saw on his second trip to the country, is quite likable.

As Human Rights Watch puts it, Kim’s succession as supreme leader after the death of his father, Kim Jong Il, in December 2011, “had little impact on the country’s dire human rights record.”

People are still subjected to torture and thrown into prison camps based on political charges. Those who have managed to escape describe horror that includes beatings, starvation and executions.

In 2012, “Defectors continued to report extrajudicial killings, disappearances, arbitrary detention, arrests of political prisoners, and torture,” the U.S. State Department Human Rights Report says.

“The judiciary was not independent and did not provide fair trials. There continued to be reports of severe punishment of some repatriated refugees and their family members. There were reports of trafficked women among refugees and workers crossing the border into China. … The government made no known attempts to prosecute officials who committed human rights abuses.”

Meanwhile, much of the country starves. More than 25% of North Korean children under the age of 5 suffered from chronic malnutrition in 2012, according to the National Nutrition Survey of North Korea, a report backed by UNICEF, the World Food Program and the World Health Organization. The report also found nearly one in three women suffered from anemia.

CNN 

Confirmation on Kim Jong Un and Ri Sol Ju beginning a family

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north korea Ri Sol Ju and Kim Jong UnRetired NBA star Dennis Rodman has revealed the name of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s baby daughter. On Sunday, Rodman told the British newspaper the Guardian that he and Kim had a “relaxing time by the sea” with the leader’s family and discussed holding a historic friendship basketball game between the U.S. and North Korea.

Rodman said he held Kim’s baby, named Ju Ae, and spoke with his wife Ri Sol Ju. He also alluded to another visit in December.

After his previous trip in February, Rodman said in a media interview that Ri kept talking about her and Kim’s baby daughter. It was a confirmation of media speculation that there was a new baby in North Korea’s ruling family after North Korean state TV in January broadcast video of Ri in which she appeared slimmer than in previous months, when she appeared to be pregnant.

The Guardian report said Rodman plans to organize a basketball game between U.S. and Korean teams and details on the match are expected on Monday. “Kim is a great guy, he loves basketball, and he’s interested in building trust and understanding through sport and cultural exchanges,” Rodman was quoted as saying.

AP

Kim Jong Un courting of Dennis Rodman equivalent to his enjoyment of Disney characters

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Excerpts of a CNN piece by Sung-Yoon Lee, an assistant professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and a Kim Koo-Korea Foundation professor in Korean Studies:

Dennis Rodman, the former NBA star and the first American known to have met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, was in the secretive country again this past week, purportedly to meet his “friend Kim, the Marshal” and perhaps also, to negotiate for the release of Kenneth Bae, a U.S. citizen detained since November.

Kim’s unconventional courting of Rodman is about equivalent to his enjoyment of Disney characters and scantily clad women on stage. It’s all jolly and trite pleasure.

Kim’s attraction to American icons such as the NBA or Hollywood does not signal a genuine overture to Washington. It does not indicate intentions of reform or opening up of the isolated totalitarian state that imprisons some 1% of its population in political concentration camps.

We should never forget that amidst the levity and bonhomie that will emanate from Pyongyang in the coming days, North Korea, throughout more than 60 years of its existence, has committed systematic and widespread attacks on its civilian population, including murder, extermination, enslavement, torture, enforced sexual slavery and disappearance of people. In short, these are crimes against humanity.

If anything, the young North Korean leader’s occasional displays of affinity for American pop culture will only irk the country’s revolutionary old guards. Kim clearly lacks the gravitas of his late father. He may believe that he is exuding an affable image by being seen with an American star. But by traditional Korean standards on how a national leader should carry himself, Kim comes across as less charismatic than — dare I say — a lightweight.

There is no reason to believe that the North Korean military would challenge anytime soon. Kim’s hold on power over the party and the military seems, for now, firm. But the prospects for a long, happy reign for whom propagandists tout as a demigod are dim.

Rodman back to Pyongyang but says won’t bring back jailed American

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Flamboyant former basketball star Dennis Rodman arrived in North Korea on Tuesday for a five-day visit, his second this year, but said he had no plans to negotiate the release of a jailed American missionary, Kenneth Bae. Bae, a Korean American who had been working as a Christian missionary in China and North Korea, was arrested in the northeast port city of Rason late last year.

“I’m not going to North Korea to discuss freeing Kenneth Bae,” Rodman told Reuters in a telephone interview before he left Beijing for Pyongyang. “I’m just going there on another basketball diplomacy tour.”

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un is a basketball fan and appeared to get on well with Rodman on the earlier visit, with the two of them pictured laughing, eating and drinking together and watching an all-star basketball match.

Wearing his trademark dark sunglasses, the 6-foot 7-inch (2.01 meter) Rodman said, “I’m just trying to go over there to meet my friend Kim, the Marshal. Try to start a basketball league over there, something like that.”

He called Kim, 30, who rules unchallenged in a country where there are an estimated 150,000-200,000 prisoners in work camps, “an awesome kid”.

[WTAQ]

Nine years in North Korean gulag because of a secret

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As a member of the North Korean elite in the 1970s, 77-year-old former dancer Kim Young-Soon had it all: well-connected, well-heeled and well-housed. Her privileged lifestyle was largely the result of having an older brother who was a general during the 1950-53 Korean War.

She also had many equally privileged friends — among them a pretty, married actress, Song Hae-Rim, who in 1969 became the lover of Kim Jong-Il, the as-yet unmarried son and heir of then-leader Kim Il-Sung.

“I knew I would never see her again,” Kim told the commission of the day Song visited her house to say she was going to move in to the junior Kim’s residence. Kim Jong-Il and Song never married and their relationship was kept secret for years in the deeply conservative North, even after Song gave birth to a son.

In her testimony on Wednesday, Kim Young-Soon said she was among a group “purged” to prevent the story of the relationship spreading. In 1970 she was summoned by the secret police, locked in a room and grilled for two months about her knowledge of “senior party officials”.

She told them nothing but was then taken — along with her four young children and both her parents — to Yodok, a newly-built prison camp in a remote mountainous region in the northeast. There was no trial, and no indication of her sentence.

“They didn’t even tell me what my offence was, and only said, ‘All of you are supposed to be dead, but are being allowed to live here at the greatest mercy of our leader’,” Kim recalled.

So began a nine-year ordeal in what Kim described as “the most hellish place in the world”. Inmates had to work from dawn to dusk — tending fields, cutting trees, building livestock sheds — followed by hours of ideology classes in the evening. Rations were a handful of salt and maize that was cut if inmates failed to meet their daily work target.

Kim said they supplemented their diet with anything they could catch, including snakes, salamanders and rats. “We ate anything that moved or sprouted from the soil,” she said

Inmates caught trying to escape or scavenging leftovers from the guards were executed in public. Anyone showing sympathy for them was either beaten, tortured or even executed themselves.

Kim’s said her father starved to death within a year and was soon followed by her mother. One of her sons drowned in a stream while one daughter was sent to live with a farmer family and never seen again.

Kim said many fallen members of the elite were in the camp, including a celebrated movie director, former generals and a prominent soccer star. “No one was free from the grips of the Kim dynasty,” she said.

Nine years later, a visiting military official who knew Kim Young-Soon’s brother managed to help arrange her release in 1979. After getting out, she found her husband had been sent to another prison camp which “no one can walk out alive from”. She never saw or heard from him again. Kim’s youngest son was caught trying to flee the North and executed in 1989 at the age of 23.

She was also under constant surveillance by neighbors and secret police, who warned her against spreading “ungrounded rumors” about the leadership.

The famine that decimated North Korea in the mid-1990s — coupled with the shock at her son’s execution — convinced Kim that it was finally time for her to escape. In 2001 she bribed her way across the border with China and eventually made it to Seoul in 2003, where she works as a dance teacher and lectures on life in North Korea. “Those who live in a free society will never truly understand what happens in those labor camps,” she said.

[xinmsn]

How North Koreans view their country and history

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North Korea has long been vilified and condemned by the Western press as bellicose, provocative and unpredictable.

However, to many Koreans, North Korea represents something praiseworthy: a tradition of struggle against oppression and foreign domination, rooted in the experience of a majority of Koreans dating back to the end of WWII and the period of Japanese colonial rule.

This tradition found expression in the Korean People’s Republic, a national government, created by, for, and of Koreans, that was already in place when US troops landed at Inchon in September, 1945. The new government was comprised of leftists who had won the backing of the majority, partly because they had led the struggle against Japan’s
colonial occupation, and partly because they promised relief from exploitation by landlords and capitalists.

By 1948, the peninsula was divided between a northern government led by guerrillas and activists who fought to liberate Korea from Japanese rule, and a southern government led by a US-installed anti-communists backed by conservatives tainted by collaboration with colonial oppression. Bringing this forward to today:
• Park Geun-hye, the current South Korean president, is the daughter of a former president, Park Chung-hee, who came to power in a military coup in 1961. The elder Park had served in the Japanese Imperial Army.
• Kim Il Sung, grandfather of North Korea’s current leader Kim Jong Un, was an important guerrilla leader who, unlike the collaborator Park, fought, rather than served, the Japanese.

North Korea thus represents the traditions of struggle against foreign domination, both political and economic, while the South represents the tradition of submission to and collaboration with a foreign hegemon.

North Korean troops have never fought abroad, but South Korea’s have, odiously in Vietnam, in return for infusions of mercenary lucre from the Americans, and later in Iraq.

[Excerpt of article by Stephen Gowans]

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un mobbed by screaming women

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It’s a scene more often associated with the likes of Justin Bieber or Harry Styles, but it appears it’s not just good-looking pop stars that get mobbed by screaming females as they walk down the street.

Earlier this week, it was the unlikely figure of North Korean despot Kim Jong-un who was set upon by adoring crowds of women as he toured a mushroom farm in the country.

Kim Jong Un mobbed by womenIn a photograph released by the state-controlled Central News Agency, a smiling Kim Jong-un is seen surrounded by a large group of women wearing white boiler suits.

Many of the women, who are assumed to be workers on the mushroom farm, are seen crying with joy as the dictator is led through the crowd by a stern-looking female soldier.

[The Independent]