Kim Jong-il, who has died aged 69, was the general secretary of the Workers party of Korea, and head of the military in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). He was one of the most reclusive and widely condemned national leaders of the late 20th and early 21st century, leaving his country diplomatically isolated, economically broken and divided from South Korea.
Unsurprisingly for a man who went into mourning for three years after the death in 1994 of his own father, the legendary leader Kim Il-sung, and who in the first 30 years of his political career made no public statements, even to his own people, Kim's career is riddled with claims, counter claims, speculation, and contradiction. There are few hard facts about his birth and early years.
The DPRK propagated an extraordinary tale of his birth occurring on Mount Baekdu, one of Korea's most revered sites, being accompanied by shooting stars in the sky. It is more likely that he was born in a small village in the USSR, while his father was serving as a Soviet-backed general during the second world war [sic].
Kim's early life was spent in the shadows of a self-created legend, his father Kim Il-sung, who was to return to Korea in 1945 after independence from Japan, and establish, initially with Soviet and Chinese support, the DPRK. His brother and mother both died before he was eight. He was to witness the Korean war from 1950 to 1953, in which hundreds of thousands of Koreans, Chinese and Americans as part of a UN force fought across the country, returning almost to the point at which they had started. The armistice signed in 1953 settled the border between South and North Korea at the 38th Parallel.
With the descent of the cold war, relations between the two countries (for this is, to all intents and purposes, what they became after the end of the war) were almost completely broken off, with whole families split for the ensuing decades, some for ever. This event and its after-effects, along with the war against the Japanese in the 1940s, was to cast a long shadow over the years ahead, and led to the creation of the wholly unprecedented worship of Kim Il-sung, and his elevation to almost God-like status. It was also to create the system in which his son was to occupy almost as impossibly elevated a position.
Kim was educated at the newly founded university in Pyongyang, named after his father, graduating in 1964. The 1960s and early 1970s were the golden years for the DPRK. It undertook rapid industrialisation, economically outstripped its southern competitor, and enjoyed the support of both the People's Republic of China, and the Soviet Union. A state ideology, mixing nationalism, and basic Marxist economics, going under the name "Juche", was constructed, and Kim Il-sung effectively silenced, disposed of and cleared away any opposition, isolating the country and exercising an iron grip on the military, the state media and the government and party organs. » | Kerry Brown | Sunday, December 18, 2011
NZZ ONLINE: «Ein Machtvakuum wird es nicht geben» : Der Tod Kim Jong Ils verändert nicht die familiär geprägten Struktur an der Staatsspitze Nordkoreas Der Nordkorea-Experte Walter Klitz geht nicht von einem Machtvakuum in Nordkorea aus. Der angeschlagene Gesundheitszustand des verstorbenen Diktators Kim Jong Il sei bekannt gewesen, als Nachfolger werde schon länger sein Sohn Kim Jong Un aufgebaut. Klitz hält darum die ersten besorgten internationalen Reaktionen für überzogen. » | Interview: Stefan Reis Schweizer | Montag 19. Dezember 2011
FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE: Der nächste Kim: Kim Jong-un ist gefährlich jung für einen Erben der Kim-Dynastie. Seine Ähnlichkeit zu seinem Großvater Kim Il-sung, der möglicherweise chirurgisch nachgeholfen wurde, soll dem Volk suggerieren, dass bald alles wieder wird wie in besseren Zeiten. » | Von PETRA KOLONKO | Montag 19. Dezember 2011
FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE: Kim Jong-il gestorben – Nordkorea feuert Rakete ab - Sohn Nachfolger: Kim Jong-il ist tot. Der 69 Jahre alte Staatschef Nordkoreas erlag einem Herzinfarkt. Nur wenige Stunden nach Bekanntgabe des Todes feuerte Pjöngjang offenbar eine Kurzstreckenrakete ab. » | Quelle: DPA, Reuters | Montag 19. Dezember 2011
LIBÉRATION: «Le pouvoir nord-coréen risque d'être déstabilisé» : Pour Barthélémy Courmont, spécialiste de la Corée du Nord, professeur de science politique à Hallym University en Corée du Sud, la succession de Kim Jong-il peut surtout entraîner des tensions en interne. » | RECUEILLI PAR QUENTIN GIRARD | lundi 19 décembre 2011
TRIBUNE DE GENÈVE: Corée du nord: Kim Jong-Un, «le grand successeur» formé en Suisse : PORTRAIT | A moins de trente ans, Kim Jong-Un, plus jeune fils de l’ex-numéro un nord-coréen Kim Jong-Il, accède à la tête de l’unique dynastie communiste au monde, dotée de l’arme nucléaire. Il n’a rien laissé transparaître de sa personnalité. On sait seulement qu'il parlerait bernois. ¶ «A l’avant-garde de la révolution coréenne se trouve à présent Kim Jong-Un, grand successeur de la cause révolutionnaire du Juché et chef remarquable de notre parti, de notre armée et de notre peuple», a rapporté l’agence officielle nord-coréenne. ¶ Le Juché désigne l’idéologie développée par le fondateur de la République populaire démocratique de Corée (RPDC), Kim Il-Sung, père de Kim Jong-Il et grand-père de Kim Jong-Un, mélange de communisme et d’autosuffisance. » | ATS/AFP | lundi 19 décembre 2011
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Kim Jong-il: double rainbows, fear of flying and Godzilla – 10 things you might not know » | Danielle Demetriou in Tokyo | Monday, December 19, 2011
THE TIMES: Not mad, or bad ... North Koreans are victims of Cold War bad luck » | Richard Lloyd Parry, Asia Editor | Monday, December 19, 2011 [£]
