Rare Images Highlight North Korean Powerbroker’s Fall

Jakarta Globe – AFP, Jung Ha-Won, December 9, 2013

A still image taken from North Korea’s state-run KRT television footage and released

 by Yonhap December 9, 2013, shows Jang Song Thaek being forcibly removed by

uniformed personnel from a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee

of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) in Pyongyang. (Reuters Photo/Yonhap)

Extraordinary images showing the disgraced uncle of North Korea’s leader being dragged away by uniformed guards testify to the ruthlessness of Kim Jong-Un’s rule, analysts say.

It is the first time since the late 1970s that such humiliating pictures of a purged official have been made public, said Yang Moo-Jin, of Seoul’s University of North Korean Studies.

“The publication of such images is aimed at showcasing to the world that the purge is being led by Kim Jong-Un himself,” Yang said.

The secretive authoritarian state early Monday confirmed that Jang Song-Thaek, vice chairman of the country’s top body and once seen as the power behind the throne, has been stripped of all official titles and membership of the ruling party for corruption, womanizing and factionalism among other crimes.

It was the biggest political upheaval since the death of former ruler Kim Jong-Il in December 2011 and his son’s takeover.

Jang Song Thaek is approached by uniformed personnel before being removed from
 a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of
Korea (WPK) in Pyongyang. (Reuters Photo/Yonhap)

Later in the day state media released photos of the party politburo meeting Sunday that officially decided Jang’s fate.

Two images were released of Jang being pulled out of his seat in an auditorium by two uniformed officers.

One showed the bespectacled and gray-haired Jang being pulled upright, as dozens of other stony-faced officials looked on.

Another showed the 67-year-old, clad in a dark suit and looking downward, being pulled into the aisle by his arms.

Other images released by state media showed Kim, wearing glasses and appearing nonchalant, sitting on a podium with other top party officials, including the ceremonial head of state Kim Yong-Nam and Choe Ryong-Hae, Kim’s close confidant who holds the military rank of vice marshal.

It is not certain whether the two photos of Jang — noticeably blurrier than other images of the party meeting — were taken at the same time as the other shots.

There was some speculation in Seoul that the photos of Jang may have been taken before Sunday’s meeting.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attends a meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party
 politburo in Pyongyang, in this undated photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central
News Agency (KCNA) on Dec. 9, 2013. (Reuters Photo/KCNA)

But the mere fact that they were released was seen as unprecedented, as was the lengthy report by the North’s official news agency listing Jang’s alleged crimes in detail.

“It is the first time that the North has listed personal accusations against a certain official in such great detail,” said one official at South Korea’s unification ministry, who declined to be named.

“We see it as very unusual… extremely rare even through the entire eras of Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il combined,” said the official, referring to the current leader’s grandfather — the founding president — and his father.

Jang, married to the powerful sister of Kim Jong-Il, played a key role in cementing Kim Jong-Un’s rule since he took over. But analysts say his increasing influence and political power appear to have been resented by the young leader.

“Jong-Un has built a solid power base for the past two years, and he no longer needed a regent who appeared to be increasingly powerful and threatening,” said Paik Hak-Soon, a researcher at the South’s Sejong Institute think tank.

South Korea’s spy agency said last week that Jang had apparently been purged and two associates executed, in the secretive nation’s biggest political upheaval since the death of Kim Jong-Il.

Free North Korea Radio — a Seoul-based radio station run by North Korean defectors — claimed Jang had already been executed on Thursday and that the latest photos of him had been taken well before Sunday’s meeting.

Citing high-level sources in the North, it claimed Jang and six other party and military cadres who were close to him had been executed in the capital Pyongyang.

Seoul’s spy agency and the unification ministry that handles cross-border affairs said they had no knowledge of the reported execution.

KCNA said the meeting on Sunday confirmed it had “eliminated Jang and purged his group, unable to remain an onlooker to its acts any longer.”

The regime said it removed Jang and his associates for trying to build a faction within the party, and for appointing his followers to top positions to serve his own political ends.

The KCNA report said Jang “had improper relations with several women and was wined and dined at back parlors of deluxe restaurants,” becoming “affected by the capitalist way of living.”

Jang was also accused of hindering North Korea’s state-run production of iron, fertilizers and vinalon — a home-made synthetic fiber — by selling off resources at cheap prices and “throwing the state financial management system into confusion.”

This handout released on December 9, 2013 from South Korea's Ministry of Unification
 shows before and after photos of still grabs taken from the documentary 'The Great
Comrade,' re-broadcast on North Korean state broadcaster KCTV on Dec. 7, 2013,
showing scenes from the original version (on the lefthand side) broadcast on October 7
and of the recently rebroadcast version (at R) where the powerful uncle of North Korean
leader Kim Jong-Un, Kim Jong-Un (in the red circle at L), was edited out of footage
(AFP Photo/ Ministry of Unification)

‘Storm of purge’ coming

Kim Jong-Un’s takeover was the second dynastic succession in the family that has ruled the isolated nuclear-armed state since 1948 through a pervasive personality cult and with an iron fist.

Jang has fallen out of favor before. In 2004 he was understood to have undergone “re-education” as a steel mill laborer because of suspected corruption, but he made a comeback the following year.

Jang expanded his influence rapidly after Kim Jong-Il suffered a stroke in 2008, leaving his health impaired.

He was appointed vice chairman of the nation’s top body, the National Defense Commission, in 2010.

His wife Kim Kyong-Hui, who is Kim Jong-Il’s sister, has also long been at the center of power. She was promoted to four-star general at the same time as Kim Jong-Un in 2010.

The pair were once viewed as the ultimate power couple in Pyongyang. But in the past year Kim Kyong-Hui has been less visible, with reports that she was seriously ill and had sought hospital treatment in Singapore.

North Korean politician Jang Song Thaek (R) gestures next to North Korean leader
 Kim Jong Un (L) as they attend a commemoration event at the Cemetery of Fallen
 Fighters of the Korean People's Army (KPA) in Pyongyang, as part of celebrations
 ahead of the 60th anniversary marking the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, in this
July 25, 2013 file photo. (Reuters Photo/Jason Lee/Files)

Yang Moo-Jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said the move could spark a sweeping purge targeting those loyal to Jang.

“There will be a storm of purge across the country… so Kim Jong-Un becomes the one and only center of power, challenged by no one,” he said.

Jang had for decades forged an extensive network of friends in the party and the government, said Kim Kwang-Jin, analyst at the Institute for National Security Strategy and a defector who once worked under Jang handling party finances.

“After two of his associates were executed, now the next target will be those who used to be working at state bodies once supervised by Jang,” Kim said, citing the police agency and state bodies related to finance and the economy.

“This is a very serious and grave situation,” Kim said.

North and South Korea have remained technically at war since their 1950-53 conflict ended with just an armistice and no peace treaty.

Seoul was “closely monitoring” the situation in the North, said unification ministry spokesman Kim Eui-Do.

Agence France-Presse

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