'Traitor': Kim Jong-un ordered his uncle Jang
Song Thaek, pictured with his hands tied with a rope being dragged into
court, earlier this week
His ‘crime’, according to the special military tribunal of the country’s Ministry of State Security, was to attempt ‘to overthrow the state by all sorts of intrigues and despicable methods with a wild ambition to grab the supreme power’.
In its announcement of the sentence, the North Korean regime did not mince its words. Jang was ‘despicable human scum’, who was ‘worse than a dog’.
Furthermore, he ‘perpetrated thrice-cursed acts of treachery in betrayal of such profound trust and warmest paternal love shown by the Party and the leader for him’.
His supposed crimes against the regime included having ‘improper relations with several women’ and having ‘wined and dined at back parlours of deluxe restaurants’.
In addition, Jang was said to have ‘squandered foreign currency at casinos while he was receiving medical treatment in a foreign country under the care of the party’.
Worst of all perhaps, in the twisted logic of this supposed workers’ paradise, was that Jang was guilty of ‘such factional acts as dreaming different dreams’.
After supposedly admitting to his crimes, Jang was immediately executed, apparently by firing squad — further evidence, said Prime Minister David Cameron’s spokesman, of the ‘extreme brutality of the North Korean regime’. Yesterday, pictures of this broken man being led to his death were beamed around the world, in a rare and graphic display of the workings of this highly secretive nation.
These images followed those showing Jang being dramatically dragged away from a meeting of the ruling Politburo last Sunday, and his subsequent airbrushing from all official photographs.
However, what the regime’s official report fails to mention was that Jang, as well as being one the most senior leaders of the government, was also the uncle of the country’s 30-year-old despot, Kim Jong-un.
This brutal inter-familial conflict marks the culmination of what has been an extraordinary week in North Korea, one which has forced the world once again to ask the questions — how much of a threat to world peace is this rogue state that’s busy creating nuclear weapons, and who exactly is Kim Jong-un?
As the world’s youngest head of state, there is no doubt that he is shaping up to be the very model of a modern dictator.
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News: People watch a TV news program showing Jang Song Thaek before he was sentenced to death
Family: Kim Jong-Un (right) applauds at a show as his uncle, Jang Song-Thaek (left), looks on
The first thing to appreciate about Kim is that he is not mad. He is undoubtedly what psychologists call a ‘rational actor’ — literally meaning that his actions are not irrational at all.
In fact, he is behaving in a way that many people would if they were born into a family that is the subject of an extreme personality cult: his father and grandfather were both long-time leaders of North Korea before him.
Like any Mafia boss or medieval warlord presiding over a crumbling territory, Kim’s first priority is simply to stay in power. And to do that, like any sane man, he is creating the spectres of enemies within — such as his uncle — and enemies without, such as the United States, which he has threatened in recent months with a pre-emptive nuclear strike, a piece of absurd muscle-flexing purely designed to raise his prestige at home.
To deal with the enemies within — regardless of their innocence or guilt — Kim publicly strips them of office, and then has them liquidated and airbrushed from official photographs.
For Kim, the best enemies within to choose to vilify are those closest to him — such as his uncle — because this gives the public the impression that the enemy is very capable and dangerous. And in order to foster a sense of terror, the executions of these ‘enemies’ are often gruesome.
Less than a year after he came to power in December 2011, Kim had his deputy defence minister, Kim Chol, killed by army mortar rounds for disrespecting a period of mourning for his father’s death.
Family: Shown with his powerful nephew during a
military parade in February last year, Jang Song Thaek (left) was once
the second most powerful man in North Korea. Some say he was seen as a
threat
Kim Jong-un had ordered that ‘no trace of him, down to his hair’ should remain.
This week, the South Korean government confirmed long-standing rumours that its northern neighbour had publicly machine-gunned members of a female musical group, Unhasu Orchestra — which included his ex-girlfriend — apparently for watching pornography and filming themselves naked. (Intriguingly, Kim’s current wife, whose name is Ri Sol-ju, was a former singer with the group.)
The number of mass public executions have soared — with estimates of between 40 to 80 so far this year in towns across the country, when last year the total was under 20.
It is compulsory for the public to attend these gruesome spectacles — even for children as young as seven.
North Korean justice: The tribunal in the capital Pyongyang which apparently ordered Jang Song Thaek's death
The prisoners — a rock stuffed in their mouths to prevent them shouting out and ‘defiling the great leader’ — are tied to a post and shot, one by one, by a three-man firing squad. Armed with rifles or machine guns, their killers shoot them so many times their faces are usually unrecognisable. The bodies are thrown into bags and dumped.
As with any ‘offences against the people’, not only are the perpetrators punished but also three generations of their families — with grandparents and children alike ‘disappearing’ into horrifyingly brutal prison camps.
Hundreds of thousands of political prisoners such as these are locked away in a network of North Korean ‘kwan-li-so’, or penal-labour colonies.
Such is the regularity of executions in these godforsaken places that according to one former prisoner, Kang Chol-Hwan, in his book The Aquariums Of Pyongyang, a bulldozer preparing some ground to become a field in his prison camp unearthed masses of body parts. ‘Scraps of human flesh re-emerged from the final resting place,’ he remembers. ‘Arms and legs and feet, some still stockinged, rolled in waves before the bulldozer. I was terrified.’
Allegations: Hyon Song-wol, right, was reportedly put to death by her ex-boyfriend Kim Jong Un, left, on August 30
Casual cruelty is also a grim fact of everyday life.
One prisoner who was able to escape and slip into South Korea, Shin Dong-hyuk, recalls the punishment when he accidentally dropped and broke a sewing machine. Without pausing, the chief foreman grabbed his right hand, and with a kitchen knife, hacked off the middle finger. And Mr Shin’s reaction? Gratitude that his entire hand had not been taken.
In some ways, those who die are the lucky ones, and many prisoners do indeed choose suicide as the ultimate means of escape.
Such appalling cruelty is of course beyond the pale, but to Kim it is merely logical if one wants to stay in control of a dysfunctional hell such as North Korea.
Together: Kim Jong Un (front centre) is followed
by Jang Song Thaek (left) in December 2011 as he salutes beside the
hearse carrying the body of his late father Kim Jong Il during a funeral
procession in Pyongyang
Dr Adam Cathcart, a Korea specialist at Leeds University, says that Kim wants his people to believe he is bringing them only some of the desirable aspects of Western culture.
Examples have ranged from his friendship with the eccentrically flamboyant American basketball player Dennis Rodman to his establishing a Viennese-style riding school in Pyongyang.
The oddest Western influence has been his setting up of North Korea’s answer to the Spice Girls. The all-girl act, named the Moranbong Band, consists of five singers (all chosen by Kim) and a backing band.
The performers often wear spangly mini skirts and heels — shunned in North Korea for years as too decadent. Their first concert, in July 2012, saw them joined on stage by performers dressed in Disney character costumes such as Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh, while the band played tunes from Cinderella, and Tom And Jerry.
Summer: Kim Jong Un (right) and his uncle
(left), and Choe Ryong Hae, director of the General Political Bureau of
the Korean People's Army (KPA), attend a ceremony of Victorious
Fatherland Liberation War Museum in Pyongyang in July
‘Every politician relies a bit on theatre, but this is to the nth degree,’ says Dr Cathcart.
In fact, nearly everything about Kim is stage-managed. He likes to characterise himself as far more down-to-earth than his father, appearing on TV chatting to ordinary citizens and soldiers. But such events are carefully choreographed.
‘He prefers to be pictured with children, and then he’ll pull away in his boat and everyone plunges into the water saying “Please don’t leave!” and “Long live Kim Jong-un!”.’
Even his ridiculous hairstyle — reportedly the product of his cutting his own hair because he is scared of barbers — is venerated. In North Korea, it is known as the ‘youth’ or ‘ambition’ haircut.
For some observers, the latest violent events suggest that Kim’s grasp on power is weak, and that he is acting recklessly to secure his position.
But that would be to underestimate the young man whom the North Koreans are made to call the ‘Shining Sun’. For Kim, the step from playing on his PlayStation to dictator has been a short one — and this week he has shown that he plays the game frighteningly well
