The mystery of North Korean political life persists
By Harvey Stockwin
HONG KONG (JP): Oct. 10, 1995 has come and gone but the long promised Kim Dynasty has failed to take ultimate power in North Korea. The isolated communist nation is still without a president and its communist party is without a secretary-general.
North Korea has been without a top formal leader ever since the self-proclaimed Great and Wise Leader President Kim Il-sung suddenly died in July 1994. It was then widely assumed that his son, the Dearly Beloved Leader Kim Jong-il would quickly take his father's place both in power and in title.
North Korea is so isolated that no one knows very much about its inner workings. While China-watchers can always infer much from China's visible public contradictions and nuances, North Korea-watchers have not even weaned that much raw material for deductions.
The Kim Senior and Kim Junior personality cult continues unabated in North Korean propaganda. The people are uniformly urged to be "of one mind" in their support for the regime. The official media reflects total conformity. The government is therefore under no pressure to explain why it is that the party is not of one mind in quickly deciding that Kim Junior should be its secretary-general.
Ever since the Great Leader's death, foreign observers have set numerous target dates by which time, it was asserted, the Dear Leader would finally step into his father's shoes. Oct. 10, 1995, was the latest such date because it is the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the Korean Workers Party (KWP), as the communist party is called.
The KWP's anniversary has been duly celebrated. A million North Koreans were predictably organized to attend a mass rally in Pyongyang. Thousands of balloons were rapturously released. There was a massive military march-past. The Dear Leader Kim Jong-il made one of his rare public appearances at the rally. Yet his elevation to the presidency of the country and the secretary-generalship of the KWP were not announced.
Kim said nothing at the rally.
The KWP central committee, which presumably would be the body to proclaim the formal accession of the Kim Dynasty, has not been called into session. To add a little speculative spice to the situation, the Dear Leader's half-brother Kim Pyong-il, now a North Korean ambassador in Central Europe, reportedly said last week that an immediate accession was not likely.
The Russian ITAR-Tass news agency took no notice of this clue. Instead, it cited North Korean sources in Beijing that Kim would become KWP secretary-general on the anniversary. Tass said that Chinese Communist Party secretary-general Jiang Zemin attended a North Korean embassy reception in Beijing after being told that Kim's elevation was imminent. It didn't happen.
No one knows for sure what this means. But would-be analysts of the North Korean scene, most of whom have assumed that Kim's accession to formal power was only a matter of time, should at least start to pose to themselves the obvious question: Does this mean that there is a well-concealed power struggle under way, and the Dear Leader does not hold all the cards?
As Rajiv Gandhi brilliantly illustrated when quickly taking power as Indian prime minister immediately after his mother Indira Gandhi was assassinated, would-be dynasts tend to promptly assert their right to power, lest other politicians or personalities get ideas about supplanting the dynasty.
Given North Korea's rigid totalitarian control, it remains difficult to assume that Kim Jong-il will be replaced. A statue of him has already been placed in Pyongyang. The Thoughts of Kim Jong-il are still regularly published. With unconscious irony, he was recently quoted as saying that "our socialism is making a long drive without vacillation."
Recent military appointments were signed by Kim, who remains a Marshal in the Korean army, although he has yet to be elevated to the rank of Generalissimo like his father. Curiously -- maybe significantly -- the top military job under Kim, who is commander in chief, has been filled with less vacillation. Thus Kim Il- sung's longtime colleague and Minister of Defense Marshal O Jin-u died of cancer only last February.
Now he has been replaced by the army chief of general staff Gen. Choe Kwang. Gen. Choe, together with a member of the National Defense Committee Li Ul-sol, were both elevated to the rank of Marshal on Oct. 9. The military came first in other ways -- three generals were made vice marshals, three colonel generals were made full generals, and five lieutenant generals were made colonel generals.
The priority given to the military reshuffle could be Kim Jong-il prudently shoring up his power base, or it could be a sign that the military is in a position to set priorities. Clearly Kim Jong-il does have some power, but not yet the power (or the will) to give himself the titles which should belong to North Korea's supreme, ostensibly revered, dynastic leader.