Unknown man for unknown land: Profile of Kim Jong-il
North Koreans have only heard him shout one slogan. He never delivers his own speeches. He has met few foreigners and has only visited China, the Soviet Union and the former East Germany. Stories abound of his indulgence in excesses both sexual and political. He is reported to suffer from various afflictions ranging from a speech impediment to epilepsy. The Jakarta Post Asia correspondent Harvey Stockwin takes a second look at the enigmatic personality and background of Kim Jong-il.
HONG KONG (JP): As Kim Jong-il, standing slightly alone, gazed out on the million or more North Koreans assembled in the heart of Pyongyang July 20 for the memorial service for his father Kim Il-sung, he looked a forlorn figure, as if lost among all his new responsibilities.
The weight of the world had fallen on his shoulders, one felt, and the 53 year old dynastic successor was uncertain what he was to do about all these new burdens. One thing he was completely unable to do. He did not speak to the nation in whose name he was now being hailed as the Great Successor, the Great Chieftain, the new Great Leader and numerous other superlatives.
He apparently could not end the 12-day mourning period with a deft turn of phrase about his father, the only president which North Korea has known since 1948. Kim Jong-il gave no indication of where he might lead the nation in the new era that was dawning.
Normally this reporter would seldom if ever rely on a visual intuitive reading of a political leader. But given the paucity of factual insight into Kim Jong-il's life, given the utterly unbelievable attributes given to him over the years by the North Korean purveyors of personality cult, and given the sometimes biased, possibly mendacious, information conveyed about him by South Korean intelligence, intuition is probably as good a source as we have.
At least the TV stations around the globe have dusted off, in the last two weeks, all the file footage they could find about the young Kim and this, plus the new pictures of him taken during the mourning period, give us something to go on.
"He looks a little bit off," commented one Hong Kong journalist, amazed at Kim's bouffant hair style and elevated shoes, using the English phrase for such things as milk gone sour.
"He looked gaunt, drawn and worried," commented one Japan based Korea-watcher, remembering reports that Kim was usually very animated and pudgy, adding "he appears a very unhappy man, and I think that goes beyond the mourning."
"You look at his eyes," says one Chinese businessman "and he does not seem to have a high IQ."
"There's something wrong with him," says one Japanese researcher, "he doesn't look well at all."
All these and several other sources agreed on one conclusion: that Kim junior does not appear to have the same degree of charisma naturally exuded by Kim Senior.
Kim Il-sung, on the rare occasions that he was seen in public, obviously appeared the man in charge, but he could smile and exude authority at the same time. Kim Jong-il, on the even rarer occasions that he has been seen in public, has yet to demonstrate that he is in charge for any other reason than that of being his father's son.
In one sense Kim Jong-il superbly represents North Korea: Kim is just as remote, as unknown, and as isolated as the nation he is now said to lead. As with the country, so with the leader, the little that is known leaves one wondering what on earth is really going on.
"Kim Jong-il emerged from obscurity today," wrote one Washington Post reporter on Oct. 11, 1980, when, prior to the Sixth Congress of the Korean Worker's Party, Kim Jong-il was listed for the first time in the top party hierarchy.
The truth is that Kim has not yet emerged from obscurity. Given the way in which North Korean affairs are run, he may never do so.
Right now it is possible that a) Kim Jong-il is now fully in charge of North Korea, or b) Kim Jong-il is in the process of being elevated to monarchical or figurehead status and is having to share power with a person or persons unknown, or c) Kim Jong- il is merely serving the purpose of helping to legitimize the continuity of the North Korean state and is in the process of being shunted aside.
The global consensus appears to overwhelmingly favor (a). Yet the known facts and images can still be stretched to fit all three possibilities. Even Kim's formal appointment as KWP secretary-general, and as national President, when it eventually comes - if it comes - will not demolish all doubt. That is the nature of North Korea.
Even Kim Jong-Il's birthday is part of the mystery. The personality cult legend has it that Kim was born in February 1942 at a guerrilla hideout on the slopes of Mount Paektu where his father was waging heroic war against Japanese colonialism. Mount Paektu is a national symbol for both North and South Korea, is mentioned in both national anthems, and its northern slopes, now in China, are claimed by both Koreas.
In reality Kim Il-sung was fighting in the Soviet Red Army during World War II, and Kim Jong-il was born in the Russian Far East city of Khabarovsk in February 1941.
Kim Il-sung only returned to North Korea after it had been already "liberated" from the Japanese by the Soviet Red Army in September 1945.
But for years now, according to the version of history manufactured by the personality cult, Kim Il-sung has been hailed as the liberator while the Red Army is not even mentioned.
In the same way, Kim is seen as the victor in the Korean War with no mention made of his flight to China in September 1950, as his army was defeated, and little is said of China's crucial role in saving North Korea for posterity.
North Korea, in short, carries to extremes the use of history as a political weapon. This is one reason why Kim Jong-il carries such a heavy burden. If he opens North Korea's doors for economic gain, as many advise him to, the whole historical edifice laboriously constructed by the personality cult will be sure to crumble under the onslaught of truth, carrying the regime down with it.
In one important way, Kim Jong-il may be in a position to understand the real dangers facing him. During the Korean War he was kept in China, but in the early sixties he studied in East Germany, a country which did eventually collapse under the pressures of reunification.
One East German "mistake" has never been repeated by the Kim Dynasty. East Germans were allowed to peer through the Iron Curtain and see what life was like in the non-communist half of their divided nation. North Koreans cannot do so. They are still told that South Koreans are poorer than they are which is another reason why "opening up" by Kim could be an extremely hazardous exercise.
Kim Jong-il started to surface as his father's chosen heir in the early seventies as well as his father's scapegoat.
As Kim Junior began to joust with other, rival members of the Kim clan, there was the famous incident in August 1976 at the truce village of Panmunjom when two U.S. servicemen were brutally axed to death. The U.S. reacted forcefully, Kim Il-sung was compelled to apologize and Kim Jong-il disappeared from even limited view for several years, during which he was referred to euphemistically as "The Party Center".
The disappearance was taken as a sign that the impetuous youth had ordered the axe murders.
At the Sixth Congress in 1980 he came back into the limited limelight with his real name, appointed to the Standing Committee of the politburo of the KWP.
Then came another outrage, the attempted assassination of South Korean President Chun Doo Hwan and the killing of several of his leading cabinet ministers by North Korean terrorists in Yangon in 1983. Kim Jong-il was held responsible.
Four years later he was declared to be the mastermind behind the 1987 mid-air explosion which blew away a South Korean airliner and all its passengers prior to the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games.
Maybe the South Koreans do have communications intelligence pointing to Kim junior's culpability for these monstrous acts. Maybe the allegations were part of a black propaganda campaign which the South Koreans now admit has been part of the reunification rivalry.
The only act about which we have first-hand evidence that Kim Jong-il has terrorist tendencies was the less violent but no less heinous crime committed when his agents first lured from Hong Kong, and then kidnapped in Macau, a South Korean actress and her director-husband. (They subsequently escaped, and told their story, after spending eight years teaching Kim Jong-il something about movie-making).
The missing link in these accusations against Kim Jong-il is the all-important fact that his father ruled North Korea, was a tough and ruthless politician, and almost certainly would have given the final go-ahead for all these adventures.
Nothing illustrates more the addiction to, and respect for, ruthless power politics in North Korea and China than the fact that China's paramount leader Deng Xiaoping sent a wreath to the funeral of his old "comrade-in-arms".
Yet, at the very time, in September-October 1950, when Kim Il- sung was desperately seeking China's armed support, he executed those North Korean generals known to be pro-China. Soon after the war in which China saved his regime, in 1956 Kim Il-sung was still purging the pro-China "Yenan" faction in the KWP.
A key question about Kim Jong-il is whether or not he in this league of ruthlessness. The record of his many alleged exploits suggests "Yes". The recent image of a forlorn Kim Jong-il on our TV screens suggests "No". Now that he is alone in the jungle of power politics Kim Jong-il may be missing his father more than we can guess.
His ostensible accession raises anew the political conundrum. Who is the more dangerous leader, a weak man pretending to be ruthless, or a ruthless man anxious not to appear weak?