North Korea’s Transition: Time of Mistrust and Uncertainty
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il died the morning of December 17, according to an official North Korean news broadcast at noon on December 19. Initial reports say Kim died of a heart attack brought on by fatigue while on board a train. Kim is believed to have suffered a stroke in 2008, and his health has been in question since. Kim Jong Un is Kim Jong Il’s third known son, and was given official titles only last year. He was hailed by state media this week as the “Great Successor” to his father.
North Korea’s young and inexperienced next leader will lean on a seasoned inner circle headed by his aunt and uncle to guide him through the transition to supreme ruler.
The North Korean regime is almost run like a cartel. Jang Song Taek, brother-in-law of Kim Jong Il, is considered by many as a power broker who would play a key role in the nation’s future. Jang acted as a broker within the regime, especially after Kim Jong Il replaced his late father in 1994. It is clear that Jang is believed to have good relations with all three of Kim’s sons, acting as their guardian and overseeing their educations. He is believed to have backed the youngest son as Kim’s successor.
The North’s power elite is formally a three-pronged structure of the military, the Workers’ Party of Korea, and the parliament. The National Defense Commission is the state’s supreme leadership body, which Kim headed. The Workers’ Party of Korea was also headed by Kim until his death; a general meeting last year was meant to revive its status as the primary source of power.
The slogan of the Kim regime was “put the army first.” General Ri Yong Ho, the chief of staff, is ranked fourth on the list of funeral committee officials, an indication of the power he has not only within the army but as Kim Jong Il’s confidant in domestic politics.
China has emerged as the country that has the most influence over North Korea. North Koreans who escaped to northern China and remain in China live in danger, not only of being discovered by the Chinese authorities but from the bounty hunters who would turn them in to local authorities for a reward. While northeast China is generally far more economically developed and stable than North Korea, extreme poverty within North Korea and food shortages have a significant impact on movement across the border into China. The North Korean communist regime began experiencing a food shortage of increasing severity beginning in the early 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the resulting cut-off of economic benefits North Korea had received from the communist bloc.
Like all Marxist states, North Korea is anti-Israel. The only country it has fought against, other than South Korea and the United Nations force during the Korean War, is Israel. “Egypt’s military relationship with North Korea goes back to the early 70s, when Pyongyang sent an air battalion to Egypt as a sign of solidarity in its war with Israel,” according to an article by Eli J. Lake and Richard Sale in the June 22, 2001, issue of the Middle East Times entitled “U.S. Worries over Egypt-North Korea
.·:*¨¨*:·.MERRY.·:*¨♥¨*:·.CHRISTMAS.·:*¨¨*:·.
(¯`’•.¸(¯`’•.¸HAPPY ♥ HANUKKAH ¸.•’´¯)¸.•’´¯)
Just had to nitpick a little with the line “China has emerged as the country that has the most influence over North Korea”. Ex-squeeze me?
“Emerged”??? At what point in the 60-odd year history of that death camp with a UN seat has China not been the country that has the most influence? Maybe when Stalin was alive, if only then.
The fact is since their 1950 invasion to attack MacArthur’s troops, China has practically owned that miserable little pest-hole. Yes, they will say they might agree that the Kim’s are all psychotic nut cases, and they don’t directly control them, but let’s face it, China is eyeballs deep in responsibility for what has gone on there all these years, and they have allowed it to continue for decades for the most cynical strategic and totalitarian reasons.
When the implosion comes, China may likely be screaming for help in dealing with it. Leaving them to deal with their mess on their own yuan might be a terrible strategic decision for the US and the world, but it would be %100 morally justified.
Talk about “breaking it and owning it”. They own that mess, all the way.
Kim Jong-il, May He Not Rest in Hell
Normally, it’s proper to show respect for the dead. Kim Jong-il, the bloodthirsty Communist dictator of North Korea is dead and deserved no respect, proper or otherwise.
It’s time, though, to reflect on the passing of the man former Democrat president Jimmy Carter and the United Nations mourned and whose designated heir Carter wished great success.
Apparently born Yuri Irsenovich Kim apparently in Siberia, apparently somewhere Kim decided he wasn’t Siberian and became Kim Jong-il and ruled North Korea in high heels for some 17 years until his apparent death on December 17th or 19th.
Many things are only “apparent” regarding the late despot except his official DPRK titles among which were General Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea, Chairman of that country’s National Defense Commission and Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army–and unofficial titles of “Dear Leader,” “Generalissimo,” and “Great Father of People.”
My favorite Kim title is ”Biggest Fruitcake on the Asian Stage,” not including Hawaii which President Barack Hussein Obama said recently was in Asia.
Among Kim Jong-il’s accomplishments in the “hermit kingdom” were killing millions of his people, starving millions more, maintaining gulags tenanted by 200,000 political prisoners, and establishing North Korea as the most backward nation on the planet this side of Somalia.
As North Koreans were eating the bark off trees to ward off starvation, Kim found the funds to develop missile and nuclear capacities to threaten his neighbors, another feather in his cap not cited by either Mr. Carter or the U.N.
Granted, former President Jimmy Carter has been struggling with senility demons and a desperate search for a legacy following a failed presidency.
Granted, the United Nations is a boil on the world’s arse controlled by the Third World and struggling to seem relevant and objective.
However, have Carter and the U.N. lost what remained of their collective minds to, in Jimmy’s case, send condolences to North Korea and best wishes for success to his son Kim Jong-un and, in the sorry case of the United Nations, offer up a moment of silence in dad’s honor?
Condolences for what? . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=11613.)