With his boyish plump face and bouffant hairstyle, he looks rather inoffensive, a person many might consider of little importance to others.
But that would be a grave mistake, as North Korea’s newest leader, 30-year-old Kim Jong-un, proved in recent days, when he suddenly turned on Jang Song-thaek, husband of his aunt Kim Kyong-hui, and had him executed. This, despite Jang’s image as the éminence grise who had been widely considered the second most powerful person in North Korea.
Before Jang’s unexpected arrest, there had been reports that a number of North Korean senior military officers had been arrested and executed, giving the impression something was afoot in North Korea two short years after Kim Jong-un’s takeover of power.
To add a further dimension to this latest development, it was announced that despite the execution of her husband, Kim Kyong-hui was named a member of a funeral committee for a senior ruling party member who had just died, suggesting her relationship with the North Korean leader was seemingly not in peril.
To add further confusion regarding the factors behind the execution of the onetime power broker behind Kim Jong-un, there also was speculation that among the many charges levelled against Jang — plotting to advance his own power, dubious financial transactions, lack of respect for the new leader and his late father — there were also charges of exploiting his position to womanize, a practice that some claim reached the point where his wife finally turned on him.
While it might be difficult for many to comprehend what is behind this latest bizarre turn of events in that unpredictable country, it is not, sadly, all that unusual.
Put simply, North Korea is a country unlike any other and capable of actions that often defy reality.
For example, in January 1968, a North Korean commando unit of 31 men infiltrated South Korea with the objective of assassinating the South Korean president.
Although they failed in their mission, it resulted in the death of 26 South Koreans and 66 wounded. All the North Korean infiltrators were killed, except for one captured and one presumed to have escaped back to North Korea.
In April 1987, a two-person North Korean team planted a bomb on a South Korean airline flying from Abu Dhabi to Seoul, killing 198 passengers and crew. According to the young female terrorist caught by the Abu Dhabi security despite her suicide attempt, the motive for the terrorist bombing was to scare foreign tourists from attending the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. (The young terrorist, Kim Hyun-hee, was subsequently freed by South Korea on the grounds she had been brainwashed into carrying out the terrorist act.)
In recent years, there have been numerous incidents involving clashes between North Korea and South Korea, including frequently in territorial waters.
There have been periods where South Korea has attempted to influence more moderation by Pyongyang by providing food aid due to frequent agricultural shortfalls in North Korea, plus establishing a facility in North Korea where local North Koreans have received jobs in South Korean-owned business firms. Nevertheless, North Korea continues to pursue policies that undermine efforts to lower tension between the two.
One of the major obstacles to lessening tension between North Korea and South Korea — as well as with Pyongyang’s neighbours, the U.S., European Union and United Nations — concerns Pyongyang’s development of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, one reportedly capable of reaching the west coast of North America.
Talks between North Korea and South Korea, China, Japan, the U.S. and Russia over negotiations to end Pyongyang’s nuclear-weapons program are frozen.
This month’s events in North Korea clearly are worrisome for the international community because of uncertainty where they might lead and what effect they might have in persuading North Korea to moderate its dangerous, destabilizing policies.
Harry Sterling, a former diplomat, is an Ottawa-based commentator. He served in South Korea and writes regularly on Asian issues.
