1
“DESPICABLE human scum” is not an altogether unusual turn of phrase in the context of official pronouncements from Pyongyang. What makes it remarkable is that it was part of a lurid description of North Korea’s second most powerful man.
Jang Song-thaek also happened to be the supreme leader’s uncle. His fall from grace would have been intriguing even if it had not swiftly been followed by brutal retribution. As the official news agency KCNA put it, once a military tribunal gave its verdict, “the decision was immediately executed”. Unofficial reports suggest a machine-gun was used to carry out the sentence.
It is not unknown for members of North Korea’s ruling family to be sidelined. The nation’s founding father, Kim Il-sung, banished one of his brothers to the countryside in the mid-1970s, and Jang himself appears to have been purged at least once and possibly twice in the past — he not only survived but was able to return to the hierarchy.
A year or so before he died in December 2011, the present ruler’s father, Kim Jong-il, picked his sister, Kim Kyong-hui, and her husband Jang to groom his designated heir, Kim Jong-un, for the leadership. The latter’s turn at the top appears to have come rather sooner than anyone expected, which evidently made Jang the power behind the throne.
We are now told he was a monster of depravity who distributed pornography among his confidants, was addicted to sexual promiscuity and a “decadent capitalist lifestyle” — in 2009 alone he is accused of having squandered at least 4.6 million euros, including on “enjoying himself in a casino in a foreign country”.
Profligacy and corruption weren’t his only vices, though. “Dreaming a fantastic dream to become premier at an initial stage to trap the supreme power of the party and the state”, Jang purportedly “schemed to drive the economy of the country and people’s living into an uncontrollable catastrophe”.
One of the primary problems with reflecting on developments in North Korea is that external knowledge about the secretive Kim-dom is strictly limited and based largely on hearsay. As a result, opinions about what exactly is going on and the possible consequences tends to be highly speculative.
For example, analysts initially presumed that Jang’s fate would also reflect on his wife (now his widow), but it was indicated at the weekend that Kim Kyong-hui had been named as a member of the ruling Workers’ Party’s funeral committee. It is unclear whether the irony was intentional, but this is supposedly a prestigious position. Unofficially, there are even suggestions that she helped to nail her treacherous husband.
Notwithstanding the paucity of objective information from Pyongyang, one thing is clear: the official reaction to Jang’s ouster and execution is unprecedented. A quiet purge, without much in the way of official comment, would have been less surprising.
It has been reported that some of Jang’s colleagues were indeed quietly dispatched last month, while others are said to have sought asylum abroad. It is also true that initial indications of Jang’s fate came from South Korean sources. Yet entire front pages of North Korean newspapers have subsequently been devoted to colourful accusations and sordid details.
There can be little doubt that to a large extent this has been intended for domestic consumption, although analysts are unclear as to whether the impetus came from Kim Jong-un himself or from hardliners in the military hierarchy. Is it a case of the latest Kim establishing his supremacy, or has the nation’s most powerful institution stepped in to sound a warning against civilian interference?
Another explanation for recent events could lie in the notion that Jang, a leading interlocutor with Beijing, was keen to instigate Chinese-style economic changes, and that the denouement of his career is chiefly intended as a warning to China to mind its own business. If true, that would be remarkable, given that Beijing is one of Pyongyang’s only allies — and there are limits to its indulgence.
The American reaction to the recent events in Pyongyang has been reasonably predictable, with spokespeople decrying the brutality and warning against provocations by the nuclear-armed state.
One of the main problems with the hermit kingdom is that, unfortunately but inevitably, its opacity and proclivity towards bizarre pronouncements make it easier to mock than to analyse. Power struggles within North Korea are hardly a novelty, but their precise nature is hard to ascertain.
There is something appallingly Stalinist about the latest developments — but, personality cults notwithstanding, neither Josef Stalin nor Mao Zedong sought to establish hereditary rule.
In its present state, North Korea cannot survive forever — although it’s worth noting that predictions of its demise have proved premature in the past. How soon the House of Kim might crumble remains an open question, but the end could come as suddenly as it did for Jang.
