Kim Kyong-hui (inside the red circle), the aunt of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, is shown on state television on Oct. 12, 2014, reinforcing views that she hasn’t been removed from the country’s power elite despite the execution of her once powerful husband, Jang Song-thaek. (Yonhap)
This would be great news if it does in fact happen not because I expect anyone in the North Korean leadership to ever stand trial at the ICC, but because of the further international pressure it puts on the regime to improve its human rights situation:
A draft U.N. resolution on North Korea’s human rights problem calls for referring the totalitarian nation’s leader, Kim Jong-un, to the International Criminal Court (ICC), a diplomatic source said Wednesday.
The draft resolution, written by the European Union, was circulated behind closed doors at the U.N. on Wednesday, the source told Yonhap News Agency on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak about the proposed resolution until it is adopted.
“It marks the first time that a U.N. resolution on North Korea human rights includes a plan to bring the North Korean leadership to an international court over anti-human rights charges although this is a draft now,” the source said. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but this may explain why the North Koreans recently have been trying to explain away their gulags as “reform through labor camps” instead.
N. Korean leader fails to show on key national celebration http://t.co/pF8bPfhqTs
— Yonhap News Agency (@YonhapNews) October 10, 2014
Here is another example of tit-for-tat occurring on the DMZ:
The two Koreas exchanged machine gun fire Friday, Seoul’s military said, after the North launched shots toward balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets floated by South Korean civic activists across the tense border.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said some of the North Korean shots landed south of the border, prompting the South’s military to fire back in response.
No further details were available, including whether there were any casualties on either side.
Seoul’s military officials corrected earlier reports that artillery had been used in the clash, saying that it’s wrong.
They said shots could be heard from north of the border at around 3:55 p.m., about two hours after a group of South Korean activists flew 200,000 anti-North Korean leaflets in balloons in a border village of Paju.
The officials added that shots apparently fired by anti-aircraft machine guns were discovered south of the border around 4:50 p.m. There were no reports of South Korean casualties, they said.
South Korea’s military fired back about 40 rounds from its K-6 machine gun 10 minutes after issuing an warning message at 5:30 p.m. [Yonhap]
This may have been another example of a DMZ tit-for-tat, but the threat to these balloons activists from the North Korean regime is very real. Park Sang-hak the North Korean defector who is the leader of this activist group is the one in the most danger. Park is the man who the Kim regime has repeatedly threatened, sent their South Korean leftist lackeys to assault him, and even tried to assassinate him a few years ago due to his balloon launch efforts. Despite all this Park continues to send his balloons into North Korea which must be having an effect considering the reaction of the Kim regime to these launches.
Via One Free Korea comes this article from the Guardian that is one of the few trying to tamp down the coup and regime collapse theories that are popular in the media currently:
But there is a less dramatic explanation. Based on the video evidence of his limp, it is widely accepted that Kim is now receiving medical treatment – possibly at one of the family’s well-appointed villas. The Seoul-based defector group, North Korea Intellectuals’ Solidarity, claims that Kim Yo-jong, his younger sister who acted as an aide to their father Kim Jong-il during his final years, is signing off on decisions in his absence.
Yet claims that Kim has been toppled are not supported by reports of internal North Korean lectures explaining the surprise visit to the Games. DailyNK, a South Korean media organisation staffed in part by defectors who have sources in the North, says civilians were gathered at workplaces and housing complexes on Saturday afternoon to hear the government’s explanation for the trip.
“Senior party and military cadres were dispatched all the way [to the Asian Games] for our athletes, who, without exception, honoured the Fatherland with their indomitable fighting spirit,” one lecturer explained. “With his great love and compassion, Marshal Kim Jong-un personally organised their dispatch, and provided them with a special plane,” she added.
The text for these lectures, a regular feature of life in North Korea, is produced centrally for dispatch throughout the land, and delivered without deviation. Not attending public lectures and teaching sessions is, officially at least, not an option – as mandated by the Ten Principles for the Establishment of the One-ideology System.
The result is that almost all North Koreans hear the same stories and lies, and remain on-message, however far they may be from the capital. In the absence of verifiable information on Kim’s status, they offer vital insight into what Pyongyang wants the country’s people to believe.
The suggestion that he is still at the helm, nominally at least, is supported by Choson Sinbo, an online publication run by the pro-North association of Korean residents in Japan, which reported that the visit to Incheon was “made possible by the resolve of Kim Jong-un”. [The Guardian]
You can read more at the link.
It is good to see something published in the media about North Korea that doesn’t involve wild coup and regime collapse theories with little to no evidence to support it:
“It is highly unlikely that either the prolonged public absence of Kim Jong Un or this weekend’s visit to Seoul by senior North Korean officials signal any kind of regime change in the North,” Asia analyst Sue Terry, with the think tank Eurasia Group, wrote in a research note.
Kim was notably absent from the closing ceremony of the Asian Games and the annual meeting of the rubber-stamp Supreme People’s Assembly in Pyongyang, but the disappearing act itself may not be very significant. “Kim Jong Il [his father] did periodically disappear from view, as has Kim Jong Un,” Mike Chinoy, senior fellow at the University of Southern California and author of “Meltdown: The Inside Story of the North Korean Nuclear Crisis,” told Foreign Policy magazine. Kim Jong Un has been absent from the public eye for prolonged stretches in three other cases since taking over in 2011. The longest gap was in June 2012, when he was not seen for 24 days.
North Korea just sent three top officials — Hwang Pyong So, the vice marshal of the Korean People’s Army and second in command to Kim Jong Un himself; Kim Yang Gon, who is in charge of communication with South Korea; and Choe Ryong Hae, the secretary of the Workers’ Party Central Committee — to Seoul, which also argues against the possibility of a coup.
According to Terry, three such high-ranking figures would not leave North Korea in the midst of a coup or if Kim’s health were seriously deteriorating. Instead, the surprise visit in the South from the delegation is likely a product of economic desperation, she said, as relations with the North’s longtime ally and supporter, China, begin to falter. [International Business Times]
You can read more at the link, but the North is always looking for free money to behave for a little for little to nothing in return. So the delegation could have traveled to Seoul for this reason. I also think it could be part of a charm offensive that they typically do before moving into a provocation cycle. We will see what happens the next few months, but all the coup and regime collapse theories need to stop until there is actual evidence to support any of them.
I think this article is getting way out ahead of itself since I do not think a collapse of North Korea is about to happen simply because Kim Jong-un has not been spotted in a month, but nevertheless it provides good reading in regards to topics we have discussed here before on the ROK Drop:
Yet at the same time, Washington, Seoul and Tokyo need to coordinate planning on the potential collapse of the Kim regime in North Korea to ensure a rapid and coordinated response aimed at securing and preventing the proliferation of the North’s WMD and related materials.
Trilateral cooperation—bolstered by the support of the UN Security Council and key nonproliferation mechanisms—will be essential to stopping the potential spread of WMD and their delivery systems. A significant concern would be the emergence of organized-crime groups that could try and peddle these materials—as well as advanced conventional arms—on the black market. Aside from intelligence efforts, one key mechanism in this scenario would be the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), which could stem proliferation of WMD and related material from the Korean peninsula via the sea. The PSI is a global effort to stop the trafficking of WMD between states and nonstate actors of proliferation concern, which the United States launched in 2003 and now has over fifty member states, including the United States, Japan and South Korea. While it would be premature to enact a naval blockade, it will be imperative for all three parties to focus their naval resources on ensuring that WMD do not leave North Korea.
The political volatility in the North post-Kim would not only compel stronger trilateral cooperation between the United States and its allies. Such an environment would also provide an imperative for enhanced bilateral security cooperation between Japan and South Korea.
Finalizing an Acquisition and Cross Servicing Agreement (ACSA) and a General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) would be the first steps. An ACSA would provide Japan’s Self-Defense Forces the ability to evacuate its citizens in the event of imminent conflict on the Korea Peninsula. The GSOMIA, which was almost agreed to before falling victim to domestic political whims in Seoul, would be a basis for information sharing on the North’s WMD and missile systems. [The National Interest]
You can read more at the link, but here is a link to a Rand report from last year which discusses North Korean regime collapse. Robert Kaplan many years ago wrote an article on preparing for a North Korean collapse that is a good read as well.
It seems like some in the media are trying to make this out to be a big deal:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, who has not been seen in public for more than a month, is believed to be staying outside Pyongyang, South Korea’s defence chief said Tuesday.
“As far as I know, (Kim) is staying at a certain place north of Pyongyang,” Defence Minister Han Min-Koo said when lawmakers visited his office for a regular parliamentary inspection of military affairs, without elaborating on Kim’s whereabouts.
“I have received reliable information from our defence intelligence headquarters,” Han was quoted as saying by the Yonhap news agency. There was no official comment from the defence ministry. [AFP]
You can read the rest at the link, but the Kim family has houses all across North Korea and if he did have some kind of medical procedure done, the regime may want to keep him away from prying eyes. Going to a retreat away from Pyongyang for a while then makes sense. Maybe we should send Dennis Rodman in to find out?
This seems like just a continuation of the long running tit-for-tat along the maritime border between the two countries and not a planned provocation by the North Koreans:
South and North Korean patrol boats briefly exchanged fire Tuesday after a North Korean naval vessel violated the western maritime border, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.
The clash came three days after a high-powered North Korean delegation made a rare visit to South Korea and agreed to hold another round of high-level dialogue in the near future, raising hopes for a thaw in inter-Korean relations.
The exchange of fire took place at around 9:50 a.m. in waters near Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea, after a North Korean patrol boat crossed the Northern Limit Line (NLL) into the South’s waters, the JCS said in a statement.
“To force the vessel to retreat, our side issued warning messages and fired five warning shots. But the North Korean vessel fired back rather than backing down, which caused us to fire again. Then the ship made a retreat,” it said, adding that the exchange of gunfire lasted some 10 minutes.
Though the South Korean military fired some 90 shots, including 10 shots with 76 millimeter guns, most of the artillery did not have a long enough range to reach the North Korean patrol boat, a JCS officer said, requesting anonymity.
North Korea shot dozens of rounds in return and not a single one fell near the South Korean vessel, he added. [Yonhap News]
You can read more at the link.
Long time North Korea watcher Gordon Chang is wondering whether the North Korean regime has been toppled:
Out of sight for a month, young Kim is supposedly ill. But rumors are swirling he’s been deposed—and North Korea’s second most powerful man now feels confident enough to travel South.Hwang Pyong So must be feeling pretty good about himself right now. At the latest Supreme People’s Assembly meeting, he was made vice chairman of the National Defense Commission. This was after his promotion to director of the General Political Bureau of the Korean People’s Army, making him the top political officer in the military. In a country where there is supposed to be no No. 2 official, he is called the second-most powerful figure. Now he has crossed the border into South Korea on a one-day, short-notice trip, triggering hopes of reconciliation between the arch-rival republics—and heightening speculation about the fate of Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s young supremo, who has not been seen in public since September 3.
Hwang’s trip South on Saturday comes on the heels of a widely publicized report that Kim has been deposed. Jang Jin Sung, a former North Korean counterintelligence and propaganda official, is claiming that the Organization and Guidance Department of the Korean Workers’ Party, responsible for promotions within the regime, has taken over the country. Kim, according to Jang, is now merely a “puppet.” [The Daily Beast]
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 means 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.
With that all said do I think a coup is going on in North Korea? No I do not. Kim Jong-un is likely out of sight because of some surgery to repair whatever was ailing his feet or legs in recent months not a coup. Also if you read the rest of the article North Korean scholar Andrei Lankov says the visit of the regime’s #2 man Hwang Pyong-so to South Korea is likely part of the North’s charm offensive. Remember that the North likes to do charm offensive before launching a provocation cycle. It has been reported recently that the North Koreans completed the upgrades to their launch site which could be interpreted to mean the North Koreans are going to do another space launch in the coming months. The North Koreans do a charm offensive before provocations because they use a predetermined reason to accuse the South of spoiling the talks and then it allows them to justify a provocation cycle in response. The predetermined reason this time could be the balloon launch activists the North has repeatedly threatened.
The most interesting thing to me is the travel ban that has been put on North Korea to include Pyongyang. This could mean that more purges may be going on within North Korea as the military may be trying to further cement its power in North Korea over its competitors. Time will tell what is really going on.
