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| Kim Jong Un's Absence and North Korea's Silence Keep Rumor Mill Churning |
Funeral of Kim Jong-un's Grandfather, founder and first President Kim Il-Jung of North Korea
VietPress USA (Apr. 26, 2020): Today, North Korean media published a funeral video clip on Facebook that prompted people to think of Kim Jong-un's funeral. But it is a very old video
clip recorded in July 1994 at the funeral of KIM IL-SUNG, former founder of
North Korea, who is Grand-father of KIM YONG-UN. Kim Jong-Un’s father is Kim Jong-Il
(born 16 February 1941 or 1942 – 17 December 2011) who
was the second leader of North
Korea. He ruled from the
death of his father, Kim
Il-sung, the first leader
of North Korea in 1994 until his own death in 2011. Kim Yong-Un is the third Supreme
dictator leader who rules North Korea from his father’s death until now.
Kim Il-sung (born Kim
Sŏng-ju (김성주), 15 April 1912 – 8 July 1994) was the
founder of North Korea, which he ruled from the country's establishment in 1948
until his death in 1994. He held the posts of Premier from 1948 to 1972 and
President from 1972 to 1994. He was also the leader of the Workers' Party of
Korea (WPK) from 1949 to 1994 (titled as Chairman from 1949 to 1966 and as
General Secretary after 1966). Coming to power after the end of Japanese rule
in 1945, he authorized the invasion of South Korea in 1950, triggering an
intervention in defense of South Korea by the United Nations led by the United States.
Following the military stalemate in the Korean War, a ceasefire was signed on
27 July 1953. He was the third longest-serving non-royal head of
state/government in the 20th century, in office for more than 45 years.
On recent April 15, 2020
it was the ceremony to remember the ten former president Kim Il-Sung, but KIM
JONG-UN was absent that caused the rumor that Kim Jong-un has died. This rumor
reported from outlet news in Hong-Kong confirmed Kin Jong-Un died. Another
Japanese magazine reported that Kim Jong-Un has died or in a vegetative life
status. President Trump said Kim Jong-Un is his good friend and that is fake
news. Today on Apr. 26, 2020, the South Korean President's aide declared that
North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-Un is alive and well.
According to CNN, "South Korea continued to pour water on mounting speculation about the health of North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un, telling CNN he is "alive and well."
"Our government position is firm," Moon Chung-in, the top foreign policy adviser to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, told CNN. "Kim Jong Un is alive and well. He has been staying in the Wonsan area since April 13. No suspicious movements have so far been detected."
Questions were raised about Kim's well-being after he missed the celebration of his grandfather's birthday on April 15. He had been seen four days before that at a politburo meeting, according to North Korean state media, KCNA.
CNN reported earlier in the week that the United States is monitoring intelligence that Kim is "in grave danger after a surgery," according to a US official. Another US official told CNN Monday that the concerns about Kim's health are credible, but their severity is hard to assess."
Read this full report from The New York Times at:
VietPress USA News
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Kim Jong Un's Absence and North Korea's Silence Keep Rumor Mill Churning
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea is still sending letters and gifts to foreign leaders and domestic workers in the name of its leader, Kim Jong Un. Its news media brims, as usual, with panegyrical propaganda extolling Kim’s leadership. South Korea reiterates that it has detected “nothing unusual” in the North. President Donald Trump has called “incorrect” and “fake” a report that Kim was “in grave danger” after surgery.
All this has done little to stop the rumor mill churning about Kim’s health and the fate of the nuclear state — for the simple reason that North Korea has not reported a public appearance by its leader for two weeks. Nor has it responded to lurid claims about his health.
The lack of real information from the hermetic country is giving rise to rampant rumor mongering, leaving North Korean experts, foreign officials and intelligence agencies to parse through it all for signs of the truth.
Depending on the news outlet or social media post, Kim, believed to be 36, is recuperating after a minor health issue like a sprained ankle, or he is “in grave danger” after a heart surgery. Or he has become “brain dead” or is in a “vegetative state” after a heart-valve surgery gone wrong at the hands of a nervous North Korean surgeon or one of the doctors China dispatched to treat him. Or Kim is grounded with COVID-19. Where did he get it? From one of those Chinese doctors.
One rumor circulating in South Korean messaging apps claims that after French doctors could not wake Kim from his “coma,” Kim Pyong Il, a half brother of Kim’s late father, seized power with the help of pro-Chinese elites in Pyongyang, the North’s capital. It goes on to say that Kim’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, has been detained while Beijing is secretly bargaining with Washington over the future of North Korea and its nuclear weapons.
Seoul has questioned the accuracy of the unconfirmed reports, while the South Korean news media appears to dismiss most of them as rumors spreading through Chinese social media and beyond. But they cannot be completely ignored, since North Korea is so secretive that the world’s most powerful intelligence agencies have been unable to penetrate Kim’s inner circles.
Kim last appeared publicly April 11, when he presided over a Politburo meeting. Speculations about his health began swirling after Kim missed state celebrations for his country’s biggest holiday, the April 15 birthday of his grandfather and founder of North Korea, Kim Il Sung.
Rumors went into overdrive after Daily NK, a Seoul-based website relying on anonymous sources inside the North, reported last Monday that Kim was recovering from heart surgery performed April 12. The next day, CNN added to the frenzy, reporting that Washington was monitoring intelligence that Kim was “in grave danger.” On Saturday, TMZ, a celebrity-news website in the United States, blared: “N. Korea dictator Kim Jong-un reportedly dead after botched heart surgery.”
More than once, Trump has wished Kim well if he indeed were ill.
“North Korea’s secrecy and our lack of reliable information create a breeding ground for rumors,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul. “But his continued absence would be destabilizing as more people in and outside the country wonder if he is incapacitated or dead.”
In recent days, the South Koreans and their allies in Washington have scoured North Korea with the help of spy satellites and other resources for signs of Kim and preparations for missile launches.
Their efforts led them to Wonsan, an east coast town where Kim’s family has a seaside compound complete with yachts, Jet Skis, a horse track and a private train station.
A train “probably belonging to” Kim has been parked there since at least Tuesday, 38 North, a Washington-based website specializing in North Korea, reported Saturday, citing commercial satellite imagery.
Wonsan is one of Kim’s favorite sites for missile tests. A South Korean news report said Saturday that the United States had detected preparations for a missile test in Sondeok, farther up the east coast, where North Korea launched missiles in August last year and again in March in Kim’s presence.
South Korean officials privately say that Kim’s presence at a missile test could be a strategic way to quiet the speculation. But North Korea has also used such preparations to keep its external foes guessing.
There is a deep geopolitical fascination with North Korea, the world’s most isolated police state.
The country has detonated six nuclear bombs in underground tests and claims to have built missiles powerful enough to deliver them to the continental United States. It is also run by a man who was dismissed as a figurehead when he took power in 2011 in his 20s.
Kim has since established firm control, proving brutal enough to execute his own uncle, a potential threat to his power, and once calling Trump a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard.”
Kim’s sudden demise could create a power vacuum with far-reaching implications.
Over the decades, U.S. and South Korean officials have discussed top-secret contingency plans, including how to prevent the North’s nuclear weapons from falling into wrong hands and what to do if Beijing sends troops into the North to stabilize its neighbor, which has long served as a buffer between China and U.S. forces based in South Korea.
In this secretive society, any likely successor to Kim amounts to a guessing game, even for outside analysts who have spent their academic careers parsing the North.
Will it be his only sister, Kim Yo Jong, who has recently expanded her role in his government? What about Kim Pyong Il, who returned home last year after serving for decades as North Korea’s low-key ambassador to Eastern European countries?
Some predict a collective leadership to be led by Choe Ryong Hae, the No. 2 in the government hierarchy. What if a yet-unknown but ambitious general engineered a putsch? How would North Koreans who have been trained to worship the Kim family respond?
“While North Korea’s neighbors are mired in domestic politics during a global pandemic, U.S.-China relations are tense, and international organizations are strained, the world isn’t well prepared for the death of Kim Jong Un,” Easley said.
This is not the first time Kim has disappeared from public view for weeks at a stretch or faced speculation about his health. But the strange personality cult surrounding Kim — his bombast, obesity and even hairdo — ensure rumors can take hold.
Officials are careful not to quash the rumors on Kim’s health outright, in part because their past predictions on the North have sometimes proved wrong. Reporting on North Korea, too, has been strewn with blunders.
Top officials reported to have been executed have often resurfaced. Some of the defectors, who feed information to the news media, have been accused of, or admitted to, embellishing their accounts.
In 1986, a South Korean newspaper reported a “world scoop” claiming that Kim’s grandfather, then-President Kim Il Sung, died in an armed attack. A smiling Kim Il Sung resurfaced two days later.
In 2014, Kim Jong Un disappeared for more than a month, prompting rumors that he might have been deposed in a coup. North Korean media later showed him walking with a cane after what South Korean intelligence called an ankle surgery.
In 2015, a North Korean defector claimed that Kim ordered his own aunt to be killed with poison. But the aunt, Kim Kyong Hui, re-emerged in Pyongyang in January.
The rumors can also turn out to be true.
In 2008, Kim’s father and predecessor, Kim Jong Il, was absent from view for months. South Korean analysts and the news media speculated, correctly, that he had had a stroke. He died three years later.
Some of the biggest skeptics of the latest rumors are North Korean defectors themselves.
Thae Yong Ho, a former North Korean diplomat who defected to South Korea, said it was hard to believe that any reliable information about Kim’s health was leaked from his most trusted aides. Thae said that no one in his office in the North Korean Foreign Ministry knew of Kim Jong Il’s death in 2011 until they were gathered at an auditorium for an “important announcement” and saw a female announcer appearing on the TV screen, clad in funeral black.
Joo Sung Ha, a North Korean defector-turned-journalist for the South Korean newspaper Dong-A Ilbo, said in a Facebook post that it was reasonable to believe that Kim had health problems. But he had zero trust in news reports detailing whether and why the North Korean leader faced a grave medical emergency.
Such details about “the health of the Kim family is the secret among secrets,” he said, calling the people who claim to know “novelists.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
© 2020 The New York Times Company
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