They howled and whimpered and scrubbed raw eyes with fists. They flailed their arms in grief and marched in their thousands to the capital's landmarks. But no one, outside of North Korea, really knows what North Koreans felt at news of Kim Jong-il's death.
There was shock, of course. Some perhaps wept from sorrow for their Dear Leader, some from sorrow for themselves. Some cried for fear that inadequate public anguish might damn them, and some from anxiety about what lay ahead. Kim veiled his country throughout his life and uncertainty shrouded his death.
State media said he died at 8.30am on Saturday, felled by a heart attack "due to physical and mental overwork", as he travelled by train on one of his innumerable inspection visits. There had been not a whisper of anything unusual in the two days before the announcement.
The official news agency KCNA swiftly hailed his third son, Kim Jong-un, as the "great successor" and "the eminent leader of the military and the party". The young man, thought to be just 28, has been groomed as heir since his father's apparent stroke in 2008.
The 69-year-old left his son a nuclear-armed but impoverished country where food is scarce and human rights abuses rife, and his unexpected death sent a chill far beyond the 24 million inhabitants of North Korea. Politicians in Washington, Seoul, Tokyo and beyond weighed the prospects of a third generation of this communist dynasty with the risk of regional instability. Concerns were underscored by South Korean media reports on Monday that the North had fired short-range missiles, although the Yonhap news agency said the tests had been conducted before the death announcement. The defence ministry in Seoul did not comment.
The South's military was already on high alert, while a spokesman for the Japanese prime minister said he had set up a crisis management team. » | Tania Branigan in Beijing and Justin McCurry in Tokyo | Monday, December 19, 2011
