SEOUL - The youngest son keeps
his mouth shut, and the oldest one talks too much.
Clearly, the silent one knows what's best for him
as he plays the title role bequeathed to him by
his late father, North Korea's "Dear Leader" Kim
Jong-il.
Kim Jong-eun is showing off his
image as the genial if rotund "supreme leader" of
just about everything that counts in North Korea -
that is, according to the Pyongyang media, "the
state, the armed forces and the Workers' Party".
His older half-brother, Kim Jong-nam, past
40 and even heavier, is not only left totally out
of the picture but may be suffering hard times for
having wondered, in an interview with a writer for
Tokyo Shimbun, "how a young successor with some
two years [of training as heir] can retain the
absolute power" of their father.
North
Korea and maybe China, if we can believe a report
in a Russian weekly, Argumenty i Fakty, may have
borrowed a leaf
from the United Nations,
which imposed sanctions on the North after its
long-range missile test in April 2009 and then its
second nuclear test in May 2009.
In the
case of Kim Jong-nam, according to the paper, as
quoted by South Korea's Yonhap news agency, North
Korea and China have cut off his funding, and he's
been kicked out of the luxury hotel in which he
was living in the gambling enclave of Macau, on
China's southeastern coast.
Kim Jong-eun,
meanwhile, carried off the act of heir to the
throne to perfection on Thursday. On what would
have been his father's 70th birthday, he was on
display most visibly since the funeral on a snowy
day in late December and then an appearance the
next day before tens of thousands of mainly
military people gathered in Kim Il-Sung Square in
central Pyongyang.
In a ceremony that once
again dramatized his accession to power, Kim
Jong-eun, not yet 30, smiled and managed a salute
before the soldiers on parade before him and the
generals who really rule the roost. And, in a
traditional gesture of filial piety, he led
several hundred mourners in bowing before a huge
new portrait of his father inside the memorial
hall where his body lies encased in glass.
But what's the kid sound like, what's he
got to say? So far, no one's heard a single
utterance from him in public. All the words of
praise for the dynasty founded by "Great Leader"
Kim Il-sung, who died in 1994, the pleas for total
loyalty to Kim Jong-eun, flow from the mouths of
the same clique who've been running things for
years.
The difference is, before Kim
Jong-il died of a heart attack in December, this
bunch of old men presumably acted on the leader's
orders. Nowadays, it's assumed that Kim Jong-eun
is acting at the behest of the generals - and Jang
Song-thaek, the "uncle", married to Kim Jong-il's
younger sister, who also holds the rank of general
but rose to power as a skillful party hack with a
direct line to his brother-in-law.
Surrounded by friends, relatives and
advisers like these, has Kim Jong-eun been told to
keep his mouth shut? Or is he just showing the
instincts of his father, who is known to have
spoken just a single sentence in public after he
took over from Kim Il-Sung more than 17 years ago?
Maybe a little of both. "He's too
important to speak," said Kim Bum-soo, editor and
publisher of a political journal, Mirei Hankook,
that is, Future Korea. "His silence means he
doesn't have to say anything to people."
More than ever, the question of who's in
charge seems critical. Before Thursday's
ceremonies, Kim Jong-eun was reported to have
promoted 23 generals. Was he aware of the order
before the announcement - and who's really calling
the shots? It seems unlikely that the top military
people would want Uncle Jang telling them what to
do.
The anniversary observances seemed to
cover just about every imaginable form of tribute.
Bronze statues of both Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-sung
on horseback were unveiled, figure skaters and
synchronized swimmers performed in his memory, his
name was gouged out of the rock on a mountain and
commemorative stamps and coins were issued.
And, as if all that weren't enough, the
day before came the announcement of Kim Jong-il's
posthumous promotion to "generalissimo" - a
tribute to his "revolutionary courage", though
he's not known to have had any military training,
much less been exposed to gunfire.
The
goal is to prop up the kid with the same degree of
loyalty and respect, to project the image of Kim
Jong-eun as a credible leader of a country
suffering from endemic hunger and disease after
years of economic mismanagement and devastating
central planning.
Kim Jong-eun since his
father's death has appeared on camera visiting
numerous military units - a campaign to show that
he is perpetuating his father's policy of
songun, meaning "military first". The aim
is to prove the young man is capable of leading
the country despite his inexperience. A recurrent
theme, the most often quoted line of the day in
the North Korean media was, "I would be willing to
sacrifice my life" for the new "supreme
commander."
In the coming months, expect
the show to get much more elaborate, the rhetoric
if possible more flowery. The observances for Kim
Jong-il's birthday in a sense were a dress
rehearsal or preview of many more ceremonies on,
before and after the 100th anniversary in April of
the birth of Kim Il-sung.
The theme for
that occasion will be to demonstrate North Korea's
rise as a "strong and prosperous nation" in
breath-taking displays conceived to dramatize the
enduring power of a dynasty that has ruled the
North since the founder of the dynasty, "Great
Leader" Kim Il-sung, a former Soviet army captain,
was installed by Russian forces at the end of
World War II.
In the planning stages, the
idea was that Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-eun
together would appear before cheering crowds in
May Day Stadium, where North Korea every year
stages mass games with 100,000 participants armed
with flash cards in the stands and on the ground
depicting scenes of glory.
Without Kim
Jong-il, "North Korea is concentrating on how to
legitimize the son's leadership," said Kim
Tae-woo, a long-time military analyst who is now
president of the Korea Institute of National
Unification. "He's in the middle of a regency
system. Sooner or later, problems will be
revealed."
The rasping voice most often
heard is that of the 86-year-old titular head of
state, Kim Yong-nam. At what was called "a general
meeting", Kim Yong-nam, as chairman of the
presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, hailed
Kim Jong-il for "leading the most brilliant life
of a peerlessly great man" who made his country a
nuclear state.
Kim Yong-nam indicated the
underlying insecurity, however, as he called on
"all the party members, service persons and
people" to "protect Kim Jong-eun politically and
ideologically with their lives and get united
around him."
As if to fend off criticism,
Kim Yong-nam upheld "the spirit of single-minded
unity to invariably defend the center of the unity
and the center of the leadership no matter how
much water may flow under the bridge".
The
reference to water flowing "under the bridge" in
the official Korean Central News Agency article
suggested dissent beneath the surface. Could it be
that Kim Yong-nam had Kim Jong-nam in mind as big
brother makes do without the funding that enabled
him to live high in Macau - out of sight and out
of contention for power?
Journalist
Donald Kirk has been covering Korea - and
the confrontation of forces in Northeast Asia -
for more than 30 years.
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