(Redirected from Kim Jong Il)
'Kim Jong-il' (also written as 'Kim Jong Il') (born
February 16,
1942 in
Vyatskoye,
Soviet Union) is the
leader of
North Korea. He is the
Chairman of the National Defense Commission,
Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army, and
General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea (the ruling party since 1948). He succeeded his father
Kim Il-sung, founder of North Korea, who died in
1994.
Childhood
Birth
Contemporary North Korean society is dominated by an elaborate
personality cult around Kim Jong-il, including a very flattering "official" biography of the man. Many of these official claims about Kim's life and activities are inconsistent with outside sources.
Kim Jong-il's official biography states that he was born atop
Baekdu Mountain (백두산) at 6 o'clock in the morning in northern Korea on
February 16,
1942. The official biography also holds that his birth at
Baekdu Mountain was foretold by a
swallow, and heralded by the appearance of a double rainbow over the mountain and a new star in the heavens.
[1] However,
Soviet records show he was born in the village of
Vyatskoye, near
Khabarovsk, where his father,
Kim Il-sung, commanded the 1st
Battalion of the Soviet 88th Brigade, made up of Chinese and Korean exiles. Kim Il-sung, under extreme pressure and overwhelming fire from Japanese forces, retreated from Korea into the USSR.
[2]
Kim Jong-il's mother,
Kim Jong-suk, was Kim Il-sung's first wife. During his youth in the Soviet Union, Kim Jong-il was known as 'Yuri Irsenovich Kim' (Юрий Ирсенович Ким), taking his
patronymic from his father's
Russified name, Ir-sen.
Kim was only three in
1945 when
World War II ended and Korea regained
independence from Japan. His father returned to
Pyongyang that September, and in late November Kim returned to Korea via a Soviet ship, landing at
Sonbong (선봉군, also Unggi). The family moved into a former Japanese officer's mansion in Pyongyang, with a garden and pool. Kim Jong-il's brother, "Shura" Kim (the first Kim Pyong-il, but known by his Russian nickname), drowned there in
1948. Kim Jong-il began primary school that same year, and in
1949 his mother died in childbirth.
[3]
Education
Kim most likely received most of his education in the People's Republic of China, where he was sent away from his father for safety during the Korean War. According to the official biography, Kim graduated from Namsan School in Pyongyang, a special school for the children of Worker's Party officials. He later attended
Kim Il-sung University and majored in Political Economy, graduating in 1964. His graduating class won the highest academic honor, "Double Chollima".
[4] By the time of his graduation, his father, revered in the government's official pronouncements as "the Great Leader" (위대한 수령, widaehan suryŏng), had firmly consolidated control over the government. He is also said to have received English language education at the
University of Malta in the early 1970s, on his infrequent holidays in
Malta as guest of
Prime Minister Dom Mintoff.
[5]
The elder Kim had meanwhile remarried and had another son,
Kim Pyong-il (named after Kim Jong-il's drowned brother). It is unclear if Jong-il was chosen over Pyong-il, or whether Pyong-il was ever seriously considered as successor by his father. Since 1988, Kim Pyong-il has served in a series of North Korean embassies in Europe and is currently the North Korean ambassador to
Poland. It is suspected that Kim Pyong-il was sent to these distant posts by
Kim Il-sung in order to avoid a power struggle between his two sons.
[6]
Early political career
After graduating in 1964, Kim Jong-il began his ascension through the ranks of the ruling
Korean Workers' Party, working first in the party's Elite Organisation Department before being named a member of the
Politburo in 1968. In 1969 he was appointed deputy director of the
Propaganda and Agitation Department.
In 1973, Kim was made
Party secretary of organisation and
propaganda, and in 1974, he was officially designated his father's successor. During the next 15 years, he accumulated further positions, including
Minister of Culture and head of party operations against South Korea.
Kim gradually made his presence felt within the Korean Workers Party from the Seventh Plenum of the Fifth Central Committee in September 1973, leading the "Three Revolution Team" campaigns. He was often referred to as the "Party Center", due to his growing influence over the daily operations of the Party.
By the time of the Sixth Party Congress in October 1980, Kim Jong-il's control of the Party operation was complete. He was given senior posts in the
Politburo, the Military Commission and the party
Secretariat. When he was made a member of the Seventh Supreme People's Assembly in February 1982, international observers deemed him the
heir apparent of North Korea.
At this time Kim assumed the title "Dear Leader" (친애하는 지도자, ''ch'inaehanŭn chidoja'')
[7], the government began building a
personality cult around him patterned after that of his father, the "Great Leader". Kim Jong-il was regularly hailed by the media as the "fearless leader" and "the great successor to the revolutionary cause". He emerged as the most powerful figure behind his father in North Korea.
On Dec 24 1991, Kim was also named supreme commander of the North Korean armed forces. Since the Army is the real foundation of power in North Korea, this was a vital step. It appears that the veteran Defense Minister,
Oh Jin-wu, one of Kim Il-sung's most loyal subordinates, engineered Kim Jong-il's acceptance by the Army as the next leader of North Korea, despite his lack of military service. The only other possible leadership candidate, Prime Minister
Kim Il (no relation), was removed from his posts in 1976. In 1992, Kim Il-sung publicly stated that his son was in charge of all internal affairs in the Democratic People's Republic.
According to defector
Hwang Jang-yop, the North Korean system became even more centralized and
autocratic under Kim Jong-il than it had been under his father. Although Kim Il-sung required his ministers to be loyal to him, he nonetheless sought their advice in decision-making; Kim Jong-il demands absolute obedience and agreement, and views any deviation from his thinking as a sign of disloyalty. According to Hwang, Kim Jong-il personally directs even minor details of state affairs, such as the size of houses for party secretaries and the delivery of gifts to his subordinates.
[8]
By the 1980s, North Korea began to experience severe economic stagnation. Kim Il-sung's policy of ''
juche'' (self-reliance) cut the country off from almost all external trade, even with its traditional partners, the Soviet Union and China.
South Korea accused Kim of ordering the 1983
bombing in Rangoon, Burma (now
Yangon,
Myanmar), which killed 17 visiting South Korean officials, including four cabinet members, and another in 1987 which killed all 115 on board
Korean Air Flight 858 [9]. A North Korean agent,
Kim Hyon-hui, confessed to planting a bomb in the case of the second, saying the operation was ordered by Kim Jong-il personally
[10].
In 1992, Kim Jong-il's voice was broadcast for the first and only time. During a military parade, he approached the microphone and said "Glory to the heroic soldiers of the People's Army!"
Ruler of North Korea
Kim Jong-il
died
July 8,
1994, at age 82 of a heart attack. He was not replaced as President, and received the designation of "
Eternal President", resting in the
Kumsusan Memorial Palace in central Pyongyang. The active position has been abolished in deference to the memory of Kim Il-sung. Kim Jong-il officially took the titles of General Secretary of the
Workers' Party of Korea and chairman of the
National Defense Commission on
October 8,
1997. In 1998, his Defense Commission position was declared to be "the highest post of the state", so Kim may be regarded as North Korea's head of state from that date. Since Kim is not the president, he is not constitutionally required to hold elections to confirm his legitimacy and has not done so.
Economy
North Korea's state-controlled
economy struggled throughout the 1990s, primarily due to the loss of strategic trade arrangements with the
USSR[11] and strained relations with
China following China's normalization with
South Korea in
1992.
[12] In addition, North Korea experienced record-breaking
floods (
1995 and
1996) followed by several years of equally severe
drought beginning in
1997.
[13] This, compounded with only 18 percent arable land
[14] and an inability to import the goods necessary to sustain industry,
[15] led to an
immense famine and left North Korea in economic shambles. Faced with a country in decay, Kim adopted a
"Military-First" policy (선군정치, Sŏn'gun chŏngch'i) to strengthen the country and reinforce the regime.
[16] On the national scale, this policy has produced a positive growth rate for the country since
1996, and the implementation of "landmark socialist-type market economic practices" in
2002 kept the North afloat despite a continued dependency on foreign aid for food.
[17]
In the wake of the devastation of the 1990s, the government began formally approving some activity of small-scale bartering and trade. As observed by Daniel Sneider, associate director for research at
Stanford's Asia-Pacific Research Center, this flirtation with
capitalism is "fairly limited, but — especially compared to the past — there are now remarkable markets that create the semblance of a
free market system."
[18] In 2002, Kim Jong-il declared that "money should be capable of measuring the worth of all commodities."
[19]
These gestures toward economic reform mirror similar actions taken by China's
Deng Xiaoping in the late 1980s and early 90s. During a rare visit in
2006, Kim expressed admiration for China's rapid economic progress.
[20]
Foreign relations
In 1998, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung implemented a
Sunshine policy (햇볕 정책, Haetpyŏt chŏngch'aek) to improve North-South relations and to allow South Korean companies to start projects in the North. Kim Jong-il announced plans to import and develop new technologies to develop North Korea's fledgling
software industry. As a result of the new policy, the
Kaesong Industrial Park was constructed in
2003 just north of the inter-Korean border, with the planned participation of 250 South Korean companies, employing 100,000 North Koreans, by 2007.
[21] However, by March
2007, the Park contained only 21 companies - employing 12,000 North Korean workers.
[22]
In
1994, North Korea and the
United States signed an
Agreed Framework which was designed to freeze and eventually dismantle the North's
nuclear weapons program in exchange for aid in producing two power-generating nuclear reactors.
[23] In
2002, Kim Jong-il's government admitted to having produced nuclear weapons since the
1994 agreement. Kim's regime argued the secret production was necessary for security purposes - citing the presence of United States owned nuclear weapons in South Korea and the new tensions with the U.S. under President
George W Bush.
[24]
Internal politics
North Korea remains silent on the issue of an appointed successor. South Korean media have suggested that he is grooming his son,
Kim Jong-chul; however, Kim Yong Hyun, a political expert at the Institute for North Korean Studies at
Seoul's Dongguk University, believes any appointee would be outside the family. "Even the North Korean establishment would not advocate a continuation of the family dynasty at this point."
[25] His eldest son,
Kim Jong-nam, was earlier believed to be the designated heir, but he appears to have fallen out of favor after being arrested at
Narita International Airport in
Narita,
Japan, near
Tokyo, in 2001 while traveling on a forged passport.
[26] It is believed that Kim uses gifts to keep him in power. He pays over 600 families in North Korea to ensure that his regime stays in power. It is also said he rewards his generals with a
Mercedes C280 or an invitation to one of his infamous parties.
Criticism
Kim Jong-il has been routinely criticized by world governments and international
NGOs for human rights abuses carried out under his rule, as well as for North Korea's production of nuclear weapons, contrary to previous legal, international obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and his own commitment to make the
Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons.
Camp 22 is North Korea's largest
concentration camp, where up to 50,000 men, women and children accused of political "crimes" are held. Reports of gross violations of human rights by the guards have been reported, such as murdering babies born to inmates.
[27]
Kim's expensive taste has become a media target. In the context of United Nations sanctions restricting the trade in luxury items to North Korea following the country's October 2006 nuclear test,
Reuters coverage noted that "No one enjoys luxury goods more than paramount leader Kim Jong-il, who boasts the country's finest wine cellar with space for 10,000 bottles. Kim has a penchant for fine food such as lobster, caviar and the most expensive cuts of sushi that he has flown in to him from Japan."
[28] His annual purchases of
Hennessy cognac reportedly total to $700,000, while the average North Korean earns the rough estimate equivalent of $900 per year.
[29]
Some defectors describe a network designed to recruit the country's most-attractive adolescent females to serve as sexual playthings for Kim and other members of the ruling elite. The girls are taken from their families and assigned to mansions and lodges used by high officials. In their early 20s, the women are married off to lower-ranking officials.
[30]
Personal life
There is no official information available about the marital history of the Kim Jong-il, but he is believed to have been officially married once with three
mistresses:
★ Kim married his first wife,
Kim Young-suk, after being forced by his father to marry the daughter of a senior military official - the two have been estranged for some years. Kim has a daughter from this marriage,
Kim Sul-song (born 1974).
[31]
★ Kim's first mistress,
Song Hye-rim, was not officially recognized and after years of estrangement she is believed to have died in
Moscow in the
Central Clinical Hospital in
2003. They had one son,
Kim Jong-nam (born 1971) who is Kim Jong-il's eldest son.
★ His second mistress,
Ko Young-hee, had taken over the role of
First Lady until her death - reportedly of cancer - in
2004. They had two sons,
Kim Jong-chul, in 1981, and
Kim Jong-un (also "Jong Woon" or "Jong Woong"), in 1984.
[31]
★ Since Ko's death, Kim has been living with
Kim Ok, his third mistress, who had served as his personal secretary since the 1980s.
[33]
Like his father, Kim has a profound
fear of flying, and has always traveled by private armored train for state visits to Russia and China. The
BBC reported that Konstantin Pulikovsky, a Russian emissary who traveled with Kim across
Russia by train, told reporters that Kim had live
lobsters air-lifted to the train every day which he ate with
silver chopsticks - historically used in the
Chinese Imperial Palace in the belief that they would detect
poison.
[34][1]
Kim is said to be a fan of
luxury cars and has been known for racing his cars at his palaces. Also Kim had spent $20,000,000 on importing 200 new
Mercedes Benz S500 luxury sedans adding to North Korea's stock pile of 7,000 Mercedes. He is also said to be a fan of
Cadillacs,
Volkswagens,
Toyotas, and
Audis.
Kim is said to be a huge film buff, owning a collection of more than 20,000 video tapes.
[35] His reported favorites are the
slasher films of the
''Friday The 13th film series'', ''
Rambo'', the
James Bond and
Godzilla series, any movie with
Elizabeth Taylor, and Hong Kong action movies.
[36] He is the author of the book ''On the Art of the Cinema''. In 1978, on the orders of Kim, South Korean film director
Shin Sang-ok and his actress wife
Choe Eun-hui were
kidnapped in order to build a North Korean film industry.
[37] In 2006 he was involved in the production of the
Juche (self-reliance) based movie ''Diary of a Girl Student'' – depicting the life of a girl whose parents are scientists – with a
KCNA news report stating that Kim "improved its script and guided its production".
[38]
Kim reportedly enjoys basketball. Former United States
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright ended her summit with Kim by presenting him with a basketball signed by
NBA legend
Michael Jordan.
[39]
Also an apparent golfer, North Korean state media reports that Kim routinely shoots three or four
holes-in-one per round.
[40] His official biography also claims Kim has composed six operas and enjoys staging elaborate musicals.
[41]
Defectors claim that Kim has seventeen different palaces and residences, including a private resort near
Mt. Paektu, a seaside lodge in the city of
Wonsan, and a palace complex northeast of
Pyongyang surrounded with multiple fence lines, bunkers, and anti-aircraft batteries.
[42]
Fictional portrayals
Kim Jong-Il is portrayed in the movie '' as a villain wanting to destroy America. In the movie, he feeds United Nations weapons inspector
Hans Blix to his pet sharks, sponsors a group of terrorists who bomb the
Panama Canal, and attempts to assassinate world leaders at a gathering in
Pyongyang.
Voice actor
Jim Ward regularly portrays King Jong-Il on the ''
Stephanie Miller Show''.
See also
★
List of Korea-related topics
★
North Korea
Notes and references
1. "Profile: Kim Jong-il" BBC News, June 9, 2000.
2. "Who Was Kim Il Sung", Prof. Suh Dae Suk, Retrieved March 27, 2007.
3. "The Kims' North Korea", Asia Times, June 4, 2005.
4. Martin, Bradley K. (2004). ''Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader'', New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-32221-6
5. "Kim is a baby rattling the sides of a cot", Guardian Unlimited, December 30, 2002.
6. "Happy Birthday, Dear Leader - who's next in line?", Asia Times, February 14, 2004.
7. ''"North Korea's dear leader less dear"'', Fairfax Digital, November 19, 2004.
8. Testimony of Hwang Jang-yop
9. "North Korea: Nuclear Standoff", The Online NewsHour, PBS, October 19, 2006.
10. "Fake ashes, very real North Korean sanctions", Asia Times Online, December 16, 2004.
11. "Prospects for trade with an integrated Korean market", Agricultural Outlook, April, 1992.
12. "Why South Korea Does Not Perceive China to be a Threat", China in Transition, April 18, 2003.
13. "An Antidote to disinformation about North Korea", Global Research, December 28, 2005.
14. "North Korea Agriculture", Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress, Retrieved March 11, 2007.
15. "Other Industry - North Korean Targets" Federation of American Scientists, June 15, 2000.
16. "North Korea’s Military Strategy", ''Parameters'', US Army War College Quarterly, 2003.
17. "Kim Jong-il's military-first policy a silver bullet", Asia Times Online, January 4, 2007.
18. "North Korea's Capitalist Experiment", Council on Foreign Relations, June 8, 2006.
19. "On North Korea's streets, pink and tangerine buses", Christian Science Monitor, June 2, 2005.
20. "Inside North Korea: A Joint U.S.-Chinese Dialogue", United States Institute of Peace, January 2007.
21. "Asan, KOLAND Permitted to Develop Kaesong Complex", The Korea Times, April 23, 2004.
22. "S. Korea denies U.S. trade pact will exclude N. Korean industrial park", Yonhap News, March 7, 2007.
23. "History of the 'Agreed Framework' and how it was broken", About: U.S. Gov Info/Resources, March 12, 2007.
24. "Motivation Behind North Korea's Nuclear Confession", GLOCOM Platform, October 28, 2002.
25. "North Korea silent over Kim Jong Il successor", India eNews, February 14, 2007.
26. "Japan deports man claiming to be Kim Jong-Nam", ABC News:The World Today, May 4, 2001.
27. "Revealed: the gas chamber horror of North Korea's gulag", The Observer, February 1, 2004.
28. "North Korea leader Kim set to bear cost of nuclear weapons decision", Irish Examiner, October 14, 2006.
29. "North Korean leader loves Hennessey, Bond movies", CNN Washington, January 8, 2003.
30. Martin.
31. "The Kim family tree", Scripps News, February 2, 2007.
32. "The Kim family tree", Scripps News, February 2, 2007.
33. "North Korea's New First Lady", All Headline News, June 23 2006.
34. "Profile: Kim Jong-il", BBC News, July 31, 2003.
35. "North Korean leader loves Hennessey, Bond movies", CNN Washington, Jan. 8, 2003.
36. "The Madness of Kim Jong Il", ''Guardian Unlimited'', November 2, 2003.
37. "Kidnapped by North Korea", ''BBC News'', March 5, 2003.
38. "Film 'Diary of a Girl Student', Close Companion of Life", Korea News Sercive, August 10, 2006.
39. "The oddest fan", Union-Tribune, October 29, 2006.
40. "Move over Tiger: N. Korea's Kim shot 38 under par his 1st time out", World Tribune, June 16, 2004.
41. "Profile: Kim Jong-il", BBC News, June 9 2000.
42. "Kim Jong Il, Where He Sleeps and Where He Works", Daily NK, March 15, 2005.
Further reading
★ Jasper Becker, "Rogue Regime: Kim John Il and the Looming Threat of North Korea",
[2], Oxford University Press (October 2006), Softcover, 328 pages, ISBN 0-19-530891-3
★
Michael Breen, ''Kim Jong-il: North Korea's Dear Leader'', John Wiley and Sons (January, 2004), hardcover, 228 pages, ISBN 0-470-82131-0
★ Bradley Martin, ''Under The Loving Care Of The Fatherly Leader: North Korea And The Kim Dynasty'', St. Martins (October, 2004), hardcover, 868 pages, ISBN 0-312-32221-6
★ Kim Chol U,
''Army-Centred Politics Of Kim Jong Il'', Foreign Languages Publishing House, Pyongyang, North Korea, 2002, Softcover, 98 pages
★
Kim Jong Il Brief History, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Pyongyang, North Korea, 1998, Hardcover, 149 pages
★
Kim Jong Il Short Biography, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Pyongyang, North Korea, 2001, Hardcover, 215 pages
★ Pae Kyong Su,
Kim Jong Il The Individual Thoughts And Leadership Vol. 1, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Pyongyang, North Korea, 1993, Softcover, 225 pages
★ Pae Kyong Su,
Kim Jong Il The Individual Thoughts And Leadership Vol. 2, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Pyongyang, North Korea, 1995, Softcover, 164 pages
★ Nada Takashi,
Korea In Kim Jong Il's Era, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Pyongyang, North Korea, 2000, Softcover, 163 pages
★ Li Il Bok,
The Great Man Kim Jong Il, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Pyongyang, North Korea, 1989, Softcover, 167 pages
★ Ri Il Bok,
The Great Man Kim Jong Il Vol. 2, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Pyongyang, North Korea, 1995, Softcover, 84 pages
★ Jo Song Baek,
The Leadership Philosophy Of Kim Jong Il, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Pyongyang, North Korea, 1999, Softcover, 261 pages
★
Guiding Light General Kim Jong Il, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Pyongyang, North Korea, 1997, Softcover, 357 pages
External links
★
★ – Foreign Languages Publishing House, Pyongyang DPR Korea (1998)
★
Born in the USSR – Kim Jong-il's childhood.
★
The many family secrets of Kim Jong Il
★
"Hidden Daughter" Visits Kim Jong-il Every Year (also includes photos of Kim during his youth)
★
Kim's family tree
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