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(from Reuters.com, by Staff Reporters) SEOUL – North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, revered at home by a propaganda machine that turned him into a demi-god and vilified in the West as a temperamental tyrant with a nuclear arsenal, has died, North Korean state television reported [December 19].
Kim Jong-il (R) and his son Kim Jong Un (in blue) at a military parade in Pyongyang on Sept. 9, 2011, in this picture released by the North's official KCNA news agency on Sept. 10 (marking the 63rd anniversary of North Korea's founding).
Kim, who was 69 years old, died early Saturday [December 17] of a heart attack while on a train journey, it said.
Kim was the unchallenged head of the reclusive state whose economy fell deeper into poverty during his years in power as he vexed the world by developing a nuclear arms program and an arsenal of missiles aimed to hit neighbors Japan and South Korea. …..
Known at home as “the Dear Leader,” Kim took over North Korea in 1994 when his father and founder of the reclusive state Kim Il-sung, known as “the Great Leader,” died.
Kim Jong-il, famed for his bouffant hair-do, platform shoes and jump suits, slowly emerged from his father’s shadows to become one of the world’s most enigmatic leaders who put North Korea on the path of becoming a nuclear power.
His state was also frequently cited as a threat to global stability.
EARLY YEARS
Despite being on the world stage longer than most world leaders, little was known about Kim. He rarely spoke in public, almost never traveled abroad and has an official biography that is steeped in propaganda but lacking in concrete substance.
Kim had a host of titles in North Korea, but president was not one of them. Kim Il-sung was given the posthumous title of president for life, while his son’s most powerful posts included the chairman of the National Defense Commission, the real center of power in North Korea, and Supreme Commander of the Korea People’s Army.
North Korean propaganda said Kim Jong-il was born on February 16, 1942, at a secret camp for rebel fighters led by his father near Korea’s famed Mount Paektu. But analysts say he was likely born in the Soviet Union when his father was with other Korean communist exiles receiving military and other training.
His official biography said that in elementary school he showed his revolutionary spirit by leading marches to battlefields where Korean rebels fought against Japanese occupiers of the peninsula.
By the time he was in middle school [his bio says] he had shown himself to be an exemplary factory worker who could repair trucks and electric motors.
He went to Kim Il-sung University where he studied the great works of communist thinkers as well as his father’s revolutionary theory, in a systematic way, state propaganda said.
North Korea analysts said however, Kim lived a life of privilege in the capital, Pyongyang, when his family returned to the divided peninsula in 1945.
The Soviets later installed Kim Il-sung as the new leader of North Korea and the family lived in a Pyongyang mansion formerly occupied by a Japanese officer. …..
ANOINTED SUCCESSOR
After graduating from college, Kim Jong-il joined the ruling Worker’s Party of Korea in 1964 and quickly rose through its ranks. By 1973, he was the party’s secretary of organization and propaganda, and in 1974 his father anointed him as his successor. …
Intelligence experts say Kim ordered a 1983 bombing in Myanmar that killed 17 senior South Korean officials and the destruction of a Korean Air jetliner in 1987 that killed 115.
He is also suspected of devising plans to raise cash by kidnapping Japanese, dealing drugs through North Korean embassies and turning the country into a major producer of counterfeit currency.
Kim was known as a womanizer, a drinker and a movie buff, according to those people who had been in close contact with him and later left the country. He enjoyed ogling Russian dancing girls, amassing a wine cellar with more than 10,000 bottles and downing massive amounts of lobster and cognac.
North Korea’s propaganda machine painted a much different picture.
It said Kim piloted jet fighters — even though he traveled by land for his infrequent trips abroad. He penned operas, had a photographic memory, produced movies and accomplished a feat unmatched in the annals of professional golf, shooting 11 holes-in-one on the first round he ever played.
When he first took power in 1994, many analysts thought Kim’s term as North Korea’s leader would be short-lived and powerful elements in the military would rise up to take control of the state.
…About 1 million [North Koreans died] in a famine in the 1990s after he took power. Despite the tenuous position from which he started, Kim managed to stay in power. …
NUCLEAR POWER
…On June 15, 2000, [Kim Jong-il] hosted the first summit of the leaders of the two Koreas when then South Korean Kim Dae-jung visited Pyongyang. Kim’s image was transformed from a feared and mysterious leader to a kind-hearted host who had the world knocking on his door. A landmark summit with [President Bill Clinton’s] Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Russian President Vladimir Putin soon followed the visit by South Korea’s president.
The ray of sunshine out of the North then came to an end.
In 2002, tension rose after Washington said Pyongyang had admitted to [building] a nuclear [weapons] program in violation of a 1994 agreement that was to have frozen its atomic ambitions.
North Korea expelled [the United Nations] International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors in December 2002 and said in January 2003 it was quitting the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
In February 2005, North Korea said it had nuclear weapons and in October 2006, it rattled the region by exploding a nuclear device. North Korea conducted a second nuclear test in May 2009. …..
Tensions heightened to their highest levels in years in 2010 with the torpedoing of a South Korean warship, killing 46 sailors. South Korea blamed the attack on Pyongyang, but North Korea denied responsibility. Later that year, the North bombarded a South Korean island, the first such attack against civilian target since the 1950-53 Korean War. …
Kim has three known sons. He [appointed] the youngest, Kim Jong-un, to succeed him.
Reprinted here for educational purposes only. May not be reproduced on other websites without permission from Thomson Reuters. Visit the website at Reuters.com.
Questions
1. Define the following words as used in the article:
propaganda (from para. 1)
demi-god (from para. 1)
vilified (from para. 1)
reclusive (from para. 3)
steeped (from para. 7)
posthumous (from para. 8)
2. North Korea under Kim Jong-il defied the world by breaking a treaty and developing nuclear weapons. What is believed to be the main purpose for North Korea’s nuclear program?
3. How did the U.S. (and most of the world) view Kim Jong-il?
4. How does the description of Kim Jong-il by outside observers differ from that of North Korean state propaganda? Be specific.
5. What crimes against other countries has Kim Jong-il been suspected of implementing?
CHALLENGE QUESTION: Read the “Background” and skim the articles linked to under “Resources” (all posted under the questions). In paragraph 5, the Reuters reporters describe Kim Jong-il as “one of the world’s most enigmatic” leaders.
a) Define enigmatic.
b) Do you think describing Kim Jong-il as “enigmatic” is an accurate description, or the reporters’ opinion? Explain your answer.
Background
ON THE NORTH KOREAN GOVERNMENT: (from the CIA World FactBook)
- An independent kingdom for much of its long history, Korea was occupied by Japan in 1905 following the Russo-Japanese War. Five years later, Japan formally annexed the entire peninsula. Following World War II, Korea was split with the northern half coming under Soviet-sponsored Communist domination.
- After failing in the Korean War (1950-53) to conquer the U.S.-backed South Korea (Republic of Korea – ROK) by force, North Korea (DPRK), under its founder President Kim Il Sung, adopted a policy of ostensible diplomatic and economic “self-reliance” as a check against excessive Soviet or Communist Chinese influence.
- North Korea demonized the U.S. as the ultimate threat to its social system through state-funded propaganda, and molded political, economic, and military policies around the core ideological objective of eventual unification of Korea under Pyongyang’s control.
- Kim Il Sung’s son, [dictator] Kim Jong Il, was officially designated as his father’s successor in 1980, assuming a growing political and managerial role until the elder Kim’s death in 1994.
- After decades of economic mismanagement and resource misallocation, North Korea since the mid-1990s has relied heavily on international aid to feed its population while continuing to expend resources to maintain an army of approximately 1 million. [Aid agencies estimate that a famine from 1995-1997 killed 2 million to 3 million North Koreans. Foreign food aid was given to North Korea, but the government distributed the majority of it to the military and party leaders.]
- North Korea’s history of regional military provocations, proliferation of military-related items, and long-range missile development – as well as its nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs and massive conventional armed forces – are of major concern to the international community. [Kim Jong-il was an oppressive dictator who required that his people call him “Dear Leader”]
KIM JONG-IL’S FAMILY: (from yahoonews.com)
- Kim Jong Il is known to have three sons – one from his second wife and two from his third. He favored his youngest, Jong Un [believed to be 26], who looks and is said to act like his father, according to the leader’s former sushi chef. He studied at a Swiss school and learned to speak English, German and French, news reports have said.
- In contrast, Kim often derided the middle son, Jong Chul, as “girlish,” the chef, who goes by the pen name Kenji Fujimoto, said in a 2003 memoir. Little is publicly known about this brother, except that he also studied in Switzerland and is a fan of U.S. professional basketball.
- Jong Nam [39 years old] is widely believed to have fallen out of favor after embarrassing the government in 2001 by being caught trying to enter Japan on a fake passport, saying he wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland.
- Experts said Jong Nam will most likely continue living abroad, with fewer reasons than ever to return to Pyongyang.
- “In the future Kim Jong Nam will have little influence on the political situation in North Korea. It’s very unlikely he will go back. His force within the country is now almost nonexistent,” said Cai Jian, deputy director of the Center for Korean Studies in Shanghai’s Fudan University.
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