guardian.co.uk,
Justin McCurry in Tokyo, Monday 16 July 2012
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| Ri Yong-ho, shown with the country's young leader, Kim Jong-un, has been suddenly removed as head of North Korea's military. Photograph: Reuters/Kyodo |
North Korea's top military official has been removed from his post, media reports
said on Monday, in what could be the start of a power struggle sparked by the
regime's young leader, Kim Jong-un.
In surprise
announcement, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Ri Yong-ho,
who was often seen at Kim's side after the death of his father, Kim Jong-il,
last December, had been relieved of his duties after a short illness.
As
vice-marshal and chief of general staff of the Korean people's army, Ri was a
powerful figure who helped ease the transition from the second to third
generation of the Kim dynasty in 2011.
Kim
Jong-il, who died from a heart attack in December, made Ri chief of the army
three years ago. Ri also held senior positions in the Korean workers' party and
often accompanied Kim at state occasions. He was one of eight members of the
regime's inner circle who escorted the hearse at his state funeral.
The KCNA
did not name a successor or give details of Ri's illness, saying only that he
had been removed from all of his posts at a meeting of the party's central
committee politburo.
Ri's
dismissal is puzzling given his role as Kim's mentor. He was one of three
people, along with Kim Jong-il's sister and her husband, tasked with protecting the inexperienced Kim from challenges to his authority.
Some
analysts questioned the claim that illness was the reason for Ri's dismissal.
"We cannot rule out the possibility that [Ri] was dismissed on account of
Kim Jong-un's unsatisfactory grip on the military, or as a result of a power
struggle in North Korea," Chang Yong-suk, an analyst at Seoul National
University, told South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
According
to the Daily NK website, Ri last appeared in public just over a week ago when
he accompanied Kim Jong-un and other senior figures to Kumsusan memorial palace
to mark the 18th anniversary of the death of Kim Il-sung, Jong-un's grandfather
and North Korea's founder.
Hong
Hyun-ik, an analyst at the Sejong Institute near Seoul, said Ri had shown no
obvious signs of illness, adding that when senior North Korean officials are in
poor health they usually stay in their posts and delegate to colleagues.
"It
can be seen as part of a general change," Hong told Associated Press,
adding that he expected further dismissals among ageing officials in the coming
weeks.
Daniel
Pinkston, a North Korea analyst at the International Crisis Group, pointed out
that Ri had not been awarded any promotions at the party's conference in April
– a sign, he said, that his future may already have been in doubt.
"There's
a very high probability that it wasn't health issues but that he was
purged," Pinkston told AP.
It remains
to be seen whether Ri's dismissal prompts a change in the "military
first" policy that characterised the leadership of Kim Jong-il.
The
communist state invited widespread criticism after a failed rocket test in April; more recently it condemned "provocative" joint military drills
by South Korea and the US, issuing repeated threats to harm the south's
president, Lee Myung-bak, and his supporters.
Multi-party talks on the North's nuclear weapons programme broke down in 2009.
 |
North
Korean soldiers dance in the plazas of Pyongyang on Wednesday,
July 18, 2012,
after North Korea announced that leader Kim Jong Un was
granted the title of
marshal, a move that cements his status at the top of
the authoritarian
nation’s military as he makes key changes to the 1.2
million-man force. The
decision to award the top title to Kim, who already serves
as supreme commander
of the Korean People’s Army, was made Tuesday by
the nation’s military,
government and political leadership, state media said in a
special bulletin. (AP
Photo/Kim Kwang Hyon)
|
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