insight
MONDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2011
Behind the news
Son and heir
Kim Jong-il dies; world holds it breath
Jung Ha-Won
SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has died aged 69 of a heart attack, state media announced Monday, plunging the impoverished but nucleararmed nation into uncertainty amid a second dynastic succession. The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said the leader "passed away from a great mental and physical strain" at 23.30 GMT Friday, while on a train for one of his "field guidance" tours. It urged people to follow his youngest son and heir apparent
Japan on alert TOKYO: Japan called an emergency security meeting Monday to formulate its reaction to news of the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il. Minutes after the noon broadcast by Pyongyang's official media, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda cancelled a speech and rushed back to his office where he held a meeting of senior ministers. He said he had ordered Tokyo officials to beef up intelligence gathering on North Korea, to work closely with the United States, China and South Korea, and to prepare for further unexpected developments.
Kim Jong-un, who is aged in his late 20s and until last year had no public profile. "All party members, military men and the public should faithfully follow the leadership of comrade Kim Jong-un and protect and further strengthen the unified front of the party, military and the public," said the news agency and a weeping black-clad TV announcer. KCNA said Kim died of a "severe myocardial infarction along with a heart attack". It said an autopsy was performed Sunday. The leader suffered a stroke in August 2008 which left him with impaired movement in his left arm and leg. His funeral will be held on
S KOREA SHARES TUMBLE SEOUL: South Korean shares tumbled 4.87 per cent soon after the announcement that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il had died. The benchmark KOSPI fell 89.36 points to 1,750.60 minutes after the news before edging back up slightly.
The President [Obama] has been notified and we are in close touch with our allies in South Korea and Japan White House spokesman Jay Carney
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December 28 in Pyongyang but no foreign delegations will be invited, KCNA said. A period of national mourning was declared from December 17 to 29. South Korea placed all troops on emergency alert after the shock news, the South's Yonhap news agency reported. It summoned a meeting of the National Security Council and President Lee Myung-Bak cancelled all his schedules. The Joint Chiefs of Staff said it had increased monitoring along the border along with US forces in the country but no unusual activity had been observed. KCNA, quoting a statement from the national funeral committee headed by Jong-un, said Kim Jong-il’s body would lie in state in Kumsusan palace where his father's embalmed body is on display. It said mourners would be allowed to visit the body from December 20 to 27.
T
he young man tipped to be North Korea's next leader and propel the Kim dynasty into a third generation is even more of an enigma than his mercurial father Kim Jong-Il, who has died at the age of 69. North Korean state media on Monday urged people to follow Kim's youngest son and heir apparent Kim Jong-Unn (above), aged in his late 20s, after announcing that his father had died on Saturday, plunging the country into confusion. Kim Jong-Un's life is shrouded in mystery, but in recent years he has been pushed to the forefront as his father apparently speeded up plans for a second dynastic succession after suffering a stroke in August 2008. In a memoir, Kenji Fujimoto, a former Japanese sushi chef for Kim Jong-Il, described the Swisseducated Jong-Un as a "chip off the old block, a spitting image of his father in terms of face, body shape and personality".
Playboy and delusional tyrant Simon Martin
SEOUL: Belying his caricature image as an eccentric playboy, Kim Jong-Il was a politically skilled and ruthless ruler who kept North Korea's brutal regime in place despite famine and economic decline. Kim, who died on Saturday of a heart attack aged 69, perpetuated his power using propaganda, prison camps, an all-pervading personality cult inherited from his father and a massive army. He defied widespread predictions of regime collapse as the communist state's command economy wilted under its own contradictions and Soviet aid dried up in the early 1990s. In the mid- to late-1990s Kim presided over a famine that by some estimates killed one million — but he still found resources to continue a nuclear weapons programme culminating in tests in October 2006 and May 2009. Severe food shortages contin-
ue. The UN children's fund estimates one-third of children are stunted by malnutrition. The regime faces increasing pressure from sanctions over its nuclear and missile programmes and the parlous state of the economy. But the late leader's state of health accelerated a perilous succession. Kim suffered a stroke in August 2008. Some reports say he also suffered from kidney failure which required dialysis, diabetes and high blood pressure. More worryingly, analysts said his decision-making had become increasingly erratic — because of the stroke's after-effects, or because he was trying to bolster the credentials of his youngest son Jong-Un as eventual successor. Kim Jong-Il inherited power from his father Kim Il-Sung, the 100th anniversary of whose birth comes next year in another flashpoint date that has US and South Korean analysts watching on ner-
vously. According to hagiographic official accounts, Kim Jong-Il was born on February 16, 1942 at
Mount Paekdu, a sacred site to Koreans. Independent experts say his birthplace was actually a guerrilla camp in Russia, from where his father was fighting Japanese forces who had colonised the Korean peninsula.Some put his birth year as 1941. After graduating in 1964 from university, Kim began his climb through the ranks of the ruling Workers' Party. He was officially designated successor in 1980 but did not formally take power until three years after the 1994 death of his father. Visitors or escapees portrayed Kim as a cognac-guzzling playboy, with an appetite for foreign films, fine dining and women. He was said to have a collection of 20,000 Hollywood movies, and engineered the kidnap in 1978 of a South Korean film director and his girlfriend. But the playboy image obscured his dark past.