I personally directed and carried out the work. Hwang Jang-yop was once one of the country's most powerful officials.
He had been a key architect of North Korean policy. His defection to the South in had never been forgiven. Once in Seoul, he was extremely critical of the regime, and the Kim family wanted revenge.
But the assassination attempt went wrong. Two North Korean army majors are still serving 10 year prison sentences in Seoul for the plot. Pyongyang always denied it was involved and claimed South Korea had staged the attempt. There was more to come. A year later, in , a South Korean navy ship, the Cheonan, sank after being hit by a torpedo. Forty-six lives were lost. Pyongyang has always denied its involvement. Two soldiers and two civilians were killed. There has been much debate over who gave the order for that attack.
Mr Kim said he was "not directly involved in the operations on the Cheonan or Yeonpyeong Island", but they "were not a secret to RGB officers, it was treated with pride, something to boast about".
And those operations would not have happened without orders from the top, he says. The sinking of the Cheonan and the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island are not a thing that could be carried out by subordinates.
It's an achievement. Mr Kim says one of his responsibilities in the North was developing strategies to deal with South Korea. The aim was "political subordination". Many cases", he claims. He doesn't elaborate, but he does give us one intriguing example. That was in the early s. I have met several convicted North Korean spies in South Korea, and, as NK News founder Chad O'Carroll notes in a recent article, South Korean prisons were once filled with dozens of North Korean spies arrested over the decades for various types of espionage work.
A handful of incidents have continued to occur and at least one involved a spy sent directly from the North. But NK News data suggests that far fewer people have been arrested in South Korea for spy-related offences since , as the North turns to new technologies, rather than old fashioned spies, for intelligence gathering. North Korea may be one of the world's poorest and most isolated countries, but previous high-profile defectors have warned that Pyongyang has created an army of 6, skilled hackers.
According to Mr Kim, the previous North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, ordered the training of new personnel in the s "to prepare for cyberwarfare". Two recent clips shown on the country's main TV channel, Korea Central Television, have supposedly caused concern about the Supreme Leader's health. One clip showed him arriving for a concert showing a dramatic weight loss. The second - and most unusual clip - was of an unnamed Pyongyang citizen who told Central TV on Friday's main news: "Seeing [Mr Kim] become emaciated like that, we all became so sad.
Earlier footage and photographs from Workers Party meetings this month hinted that Mr Kim was losing weight. Analysis by the NK News website showed that the strap on his expensive designer watch was fastened tighter than at earlier events, suggesting that he was losing weight.
We still don't know why the video of the concerned citizen was shown. But Kwak Gil Seob, who heads One Korea Center, a website specializing in North Korea affairs, told the BBC that the Pyongyang regime "would never allow negative news around Kim Jong-un to be published" - meaning that the footage was aired "to show that Kim Jong-un is losing weight by himself". The clip "shows that he is committed to his people", Mr Kwak said. Mr Kim's health has been a cause for concern for much of the time he has been the country's Supreme Leader.
He took over from his late father Kim Jong-il in December and North Korea watchers have seen his weight steadily increase in his decade in power.
Mr Kim is the third generation of Kims to run the communist state, and North Korea is seen as a hereditary system of leadership descended from what state propaganda call "the noble personages of Mount Paektu" - a sacred mountain in the north where nation founder Kim Il-sung is said to have based his guerrilla war against Imperial Japan.
Though Jong-il saw in his son a worthy successor to the dynasty, there are critical differences between the first two Kims and Kim Jong-un. In contrast with his battle-hardened elders, Kim Jong-un grew up in a cocoon of indulgence and privilege.
During the s famine, in which as many as 2—3 million North Koreans died as a result of starvation and hunger-related illnesses, Kim was in Switzerland. For Kim, skiing in the Swiss Alps and swimming in the French Riviera must have seemed part of his birthright.
Kim had a temper, hated to lose, and loved Hollywood movies and basketball player Michael Jordan. We were always in the second tier … The teachers would see him struggling ashamedly and then move on. They left him in peace. He was much more interested in football and basketball than lessons. His strong self-esteem and confidence were cultivated beginning when he was very young. And the Kim family dynasty—a totalitarian regime—carefully created a cult of personality around the young boy, as it had done with his father and grandfather before him, reinforcing it through fear and intimidation and shows of force.
According to Fujimoto, Kim carried a Colt. Everything—our parents, family, home, neighborhood, school, country—revolves around us. For most people, what follows is a long process of dethronement, as His Majesty the Child confronts the ever more obvious and humbling truth. Not so for Kim. His world at age 5 has turned out to be his world at age 30 … Everyone does exist to serve him.
These tools allowed him to validate his persecution of any real or suspected dissenters, and to maintain a horrific network of prison camps in which torture, rape, beatings, and a variety of other human rights violations continue to take place to this day, as they have done for many decades.
As the U. The markings on the street are for military parades—a hallmark of dictatorships the world over. As a scholar of U. Kim Jong-un seems determined to avoid that fate. Kim has adopted the mantle of the mythical, godlike leadership role that grandfather and country founder Kim Il-sung and his father Kim Jong-il held and continue to hold in their death.
But he seems determined to chart his own path. Kim has allowed himself to seem more transparent and accessible than his father.
He appears in public with his pretty and fashionable young wife, Ri Sol-ju with whom he has at least one child, and possibly three. He hugs, holds hands, and links arms with men, women, and children, seeming comfortable with both young and old.
That transparency has been extended to the government. When one of its satellite launches failed in April , the regime admitted the failure publicly, the first time it had ever done so. During his frequent public appearances, Jong-un can be seen giving guidance at various economic, military, and social and cultural venues, as his father and grandfather did, but he is also shown pulling weeds, riding roller coasters, navigating a tank, and galloping on a horse.
He is comfortable with technology in the form of cell phones and laptops, and is also portrayed speaking earnestly with nuclear scientists and overseeing scores of missile tests. At the Sixth Party Congress in , Kim Jong Il was given senior posts in the Politburo the policy committee of the Korean Workers' Party , the Military Commission, and the Secretariat the executive department charged with carrying out policy.
Thus, Kim was positioned to control all aspects of the government. The one area of leadership in which Kim Jong Il might have had a perceived weakness was the military.
The army was the foundation of power in North Korea, and Kim had no military service experience. With the assistance of allies in the military, Kim was able to gain acceptance by the army officials as the next leader of North Korea. By , he was designated as the supreme commander of the Korean People's Army, thus giving him the tool he needed to maintain complete control of the government once he took power.
This transition of power from father to son had never been seen before in a communist regime. In deference to his father, the office of president was abolished, and Kim Jong Il took the titles of general secretary of the Workers' Party and chairman of the National Defense Commission, which was declared the highest office of the state. It is important to understand that much of Kim Jong Il's persona is based on a cult of personality, meaning that legend and official North Korean government accounts describe his life, character, and actions in ways that promote and legitimize his leadership.
Examples include his family's nationalist revolutionary roots and claims that his birth was foretold by a swallow, the appearance of a double rainbow over Mount Paekdu, and a new star in the heavens. He is known to personally manage the country's affairs and sets operational guidelines for individual industries. He is said to be arrogant and self-centered in policy decisions, openly rejecting criticism or opinions that differ from his. He is suspicious of nearly all of those who surround him and volatile in his emotions.
There are many stories of his eccentricities, his playboy lifestyle, the lifts in his shoes and pompadour hairstyle that make him appear taller, and his fear of flying. Some stories can be verified while others are most likely exaggerated, possibly circulated by foreign operatives from hostile countries.
In the s, North Korea went through a series of devastating and debilitating economic episodes. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in , North Korea lost its main trading partner.
Strained relations with China following China's normalization with South Korea in further limited North Korea's trade options.
Record-breaking floods in and followed by drought in crippled North Korea's food production. With only 18 percent of its land suitable for farming in the best of times, North Korea began experiencing a devastating famine. Worried about his position in power, Kim Jong Il instituted the Military First policy, which prioritized national resources to the military. Thus, the military would be pacified and remain in his control. Kim could defend himself from threats domestic and foreign, while economic conditions worsened.
The policy did produce some economic growth and along with some socialist-type market practices—characterized as a "flirtation with capitalism"—North Korea has been able to remain operational despite being heavily dependent on foreign aid for food.
In , the Clinton administration and North Korea agreed to a framework designed to freeze and eventually dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons program. In exchange, the United States would provide assistance in producing two power-generating nuclear reactors and supplying fuel oil and other economic aid.
In , the presidents of North Korea and South Korea met for diplomatic talks and agreed to promote reconciliation and economic cooperation between the two countries. The agreement allowed families from both countries to reunite and signaled a move toward increased trade and investment. For a time, it appeared that North Korea was reentering the international community.
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