There is probably more to this story in regards to why Kim Jong-un would order his execution that has more to do with his bad posture at meetings:
North Korea has carried out the execution of a vice premier and punished two senior officials, a Seoul official said Wednesday, as the North’s leader is seeking to further strengthen his reign of terror.
The official said North Korea executed the 63-year-old Kim Yong-jin by firing squad last month after being branded as an “anti-party and anti-revolutionary element.”
He was investigated by the North’s intelligence agency due to his sitting posture shown at a key parliamentary meeting held in late June.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who took power in late 2011, is believed to have executed more than 100 government and military officials, including his once-powerful uncle Jang Song-thaek, as he seeks to consolidate his oppressive rule. [Yonhap]
Being responsible for managing overseas workers looks like a very undesirable job to have in North Korea considering the increasing number of prominent defections happening:
North Korea publicly executed six officials in charge of supervision of its workers overseas in May following the defection of 13 workers at a North Korean-run restaurant in China a month earlier, a local Pyongyang watcher said Friday.
“North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ordered six officials, including intelligence officials, to be executed publicly on May 5 due to their lack of control over overseas (North Korean) workers,” Choi Seong-yong, chairman of the Abductees’ Family Union, claimed, citing people familiar with the matter.
Eighty public officials and 100 people who have their family members working overseas were forced to watch the execution, he said.
In early April, a group of 12 women and one man fled from a North Korea-run restaurant in China’s eastern port city of Ningbo and defected to South Korea. In the following month, three female workers at a North Korean restaurant in the midwest city of Shanxi reportedly defected to the South.
“North Korea locked the families of the defectors up and forced them to take ideological education at a training facility in Myohyang Mountain, in the northern part of the communist country,” Choi said. [Yonhap]
The Korea Times has an article that explains how an increasing number of prominent defections are happening:
More and more North Koreans from various social backgrounds are fleeing their country in pursuit of better lives in South Korea, the United States and other countries.
A teenage math prodigy refused to return home and has sought asylum at the South Korean consulate in Hong Kong after participating in the International Mathematics Olympiad there in early July, media outlets there reported Thursday.
Diplomatic sources said Friday that a top military officer and three diplomats fled from North Korea this month and are on their way to third countries via China.
Some other sources claimed a construction worker and two employees at a North Korean restaurant in Malta presumably defected to South Korea after deserting their respective workplaces between 2015 and early this year.
Noting that those defectors are from the middle- and upper-classes, analysts speculated that a growing number of North Koreans regardless of their backgrounds are unhappy with their country’s young leader Kim Jong-un in the wake of sanctions and the country’s accelerated isolation. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but it makes me wonder if this is being caused by a combination of the sanctions, disillusionment with the Kim regime and the subversive media entering into North Korea challenging the constant propaganda that North Koreans have to deal with every day.
Kim Jong-un is either taking a very hardline against corruption or this is just a cover to eliminate people he doesn’t completely trust or may be it is both:
North Korea has executed its army chief of staff, Ri Yong Gil, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported on Wednesday, which, if true, would be the latest in a series of executions, purges, and disappearances under the country’s young leader.
The news comes amid heightened tension surrounding the isolated North Korea after its Sunday launch of a long-range rocket, which came about a month after it drew international condemnation for conducting its fourth nuclear test.
A source familiar with North Korean affairs also told Reuters that Ri had been executed. The source declined to be identified, given the sensitivity of the matter.
Ri, who was chief of the Korean People’s Army General Staff, was executed this month for corruption and factional conspiracy, Yonhap and other South Korean media reported. [Business Insider via reader tip]
The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) definitely has the best intelligence within North Korea because they confirmed this two months ago:
Kim Jong Un is an impatient autocrat who single-handedly decided to execute North Korean Defense Minister Hyon Yong Chol, according to Seoul’s spy agency on Tuesday.
South Korean lawmakers said National Intelligence chief Lee Byung-ho made the statements at a briefing before the National Assembly’s Intelligence Committee, Yonhap reported.
Kim also was the executive decision maker behind the undeleted footage of Hyon in the weeks that followed after his disappearance.
According to Seoul’s spy chief, North Korean television continued to run past footage of Hyon under Kim’s orders.
Kim, Lee said, believed the international community could use conspicuous deletions against Pyongyang because the erasure would serve as evidence of Hyon’s execution.
South Korean newspaper Donga Ilbo reported Hyon was executed at the artillery range at Pyongyang’s Kang Kon Military Academy.
Hundreds watched the execution, according to the NIS, and Kim forced top-ranking military officers to attend.
Kim may have executed other military personnel if they were loyal to Hyon or held grievances against Kim, Lee said, according to South Korean lawmaker Shin Kyung-min.
Shin said Kim had labeled Hyon as “anti-Workers’ Party, and a counter-revolutionary.” [UPI]
You can read the rest at the link, but according to the article Kim Jong-un is trying to weaken the power of the military in North Korea.
Here is what I think it going on. I have said this before that I do not believe that Kim Jong-un has the absolute power that many people believe him to have. I believe that his grandfather Kim Il-sung had absolute power, but when his son Kim Jong-il took over that the absolute power was diluted between the ruling Kim inner circle, the Worker’s Party, and the North Korean military. These three sectors competed for power with the military ultimately becoming the most powerful bureaucracy in North Korea under Kim Jong-il. These sectors of power in North Korea though likely ruled by consensus and when consensus could not be reached Kim Jong-il was likely the deciding vote which was heavily influenced by his backing of the North Korean military.
After Kim Jong-il’s death these sectors of North Korean power likely competed for influence again after Kim Jong-un took over. Kim Jong-un’s uncle Jang Song-taek appeared to be trying to challenge the status quo by increasing the power of the Worker’s Party. With the power of the Worker’s Party increasing, the military may have felt like their power was decreasing too much and took action to get rid of Jang to put the status quo back to where it was. However, the status quo likely meant Kim Jong-un has less power than his father did after the execution of Jang and the following purge of Party officials loyal to him.
His recent purge of military officials shows that Kim Jong-un understands this and is trying to re-establish absolute power for himself like his grandfather had. His grandfather had to rely on a number of purges to gain the power he had. Kim Jong-un first focused on purging the Worker’s Party of people that he perceived as a possible challenge to his authority. Now he is focusing on the North Korean military. After the military is purged that leaves Kim and his family inner circle as the biggest power brokers in North Korea. It is a dangerous game he is playing, but we will see over the years how well it works.
The Daily NK has an interesting read that compares the 1956 August Faction Incident which was the largest conspiracy to topple Kim Il-sung since he rose to power in 1948 with the 2013 Jang Song-taek purge by current North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The bottom line is that the author believes we will continue to see a lot more killing due to the lack of idolization of Kim Jong-un in North Korea compared to his father and grandfather:
Right now, North Korea is still in the process of beginning to idolize Kim Jong Un. In North Korean power politics, is there a more important element than idolization? The relationship with China and Russia, along with the policies related to industry have all been pushed back and delayed. In a totalitarian dictatorship, the leader’s authority is not guaranteed without idolization firmly in place. To accomplish this, the regime must kill many people. To put it another way, as the regime continues to snatch up important people and examine them, they’ll need to kill more and more. As Kim Jong Un continues to secure his place, we will most likely see a revamp of the North Korean totalitarianism that occurred from 1960-1980.
In all likelihood, about 30-40 years remain. In the road ahead, Kim Jong Un will not likely be able to establish power in the way his father and grandfather did. During the time of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, the foundation for their absolute dictatorship was already in place. If Kim Jong Un wishes to command the power and respect that his forebears did, he still has many, many people left to kill. [Daily NK]
Without high resolution imagery I don’t think this image is a smoking gun in regards to reported mass executions in North Korea. For all we know these could just be wooden targets they put up for training purposes:
A U.S. civic group has released satellite images of North Korea that appear to show a public execution.
Radio Free Asia reported Thursday that the Washington-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea published an analysis of photos taken last October from above a military training area near Pyongyang.
Analysts identified six anti-aircraft machineguns lined up across from some blurry objects, with distinct shadows that appear to be people, also lined up side-by-side on a firing range.
Whatever or whoever was in the images was no longer there in another picture taken nine days later.
The committee says the most plausible explanation is that a public execution took place there. [Chosun Ilbo]
The fact that watching South Korean dramas was added to the charges of these officials likely had nothing to do with their purge, it was just something throw in as a point of emphasis to everyone else not to watch these dramas that the Kim regime views as subversive media:
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is seeking to erase the remaining influence of his dead uncle, executing about 10 senior Workers’ Party officials on charges from graft to watching South Korean soap operas, according to an aide to a South Korean lawmaker.
The deaths by shooting are part of Kim’s latest round of purges, said Lim Dae Sung, a secretary to ruling Saenuri Party lawmaker Lee Cheol Woo who attended a briefing at the National Intelligence Service yesterday in Seoul. Kim had Jang Song Thaek, his uncle and de facto deputy, killed in December last year. Lee didn’t say when the executions took place, or who the officials were. [Bloomberg]
