The world wants to think NoKor is opening up

 

NoKor’s Kim Jong Un with former Army Chief Ri Yong-ho

Recent events in reclusive North Korea (NoKor) seem to indicate that Great Leader Kim Jong Un is far from emulating the ways and leadership of his late father, Dear Leader and Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army, Marshall Kim Jong-Il.  On the contrary, his demeanor has been observed as one trying to distance himself from his late father’s style of ruling.

Kim Jong Il would never have openly acknowledged the failed rocket launch in April, held a 20-minute speech on television about the fiasco, opens his coat on warm days during visits to barracks and factories, and even lets his underlings occasionally embrace him.

But, the rotund young man with an odd haircut, who is only some six months into being NoKor’s Great Leader, has done all these, and many more, including appearing in public with a woman at his side and attending a gala featuring actors dressed up as Disney characters.

According to reports coming mostly from friendly neighbor China, controls are seemed to be loosening up as more and more North Koreans or at least those who live in the privileged capital city of Pyongyang — have been going out in public wearing more modern clothing. They have also seen students wearing fashionable outfits and young men who have gelled their hair in the style of South Korean actors and singers. At private markets, imported clothing has also become popular, such as the traditional bell-shaped “Hanbock” dress, which is worn with a slightly different cut and brighter colors in South Korea.

These small changes in the daily lives of North Koreans are said to be the result of the increasing amount of information trickling into the country on DVDs, CDs, videos and USB sticks about life abroad — and particularly about life in South Korea, the enemy neighboring state.

But, one significant move that Kim Jong Un has done lately that caused many people outside of NoKor to question is – why was its military chief Ri Yong-ho been removed from his position and all other official posts, which includes that of being vice-chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission and his top role in the ruling Workers’ Party?

Ri Yong-ho was made army chief three years ago under Kim Jong-il. He regularly appeared at state occasions beside him until his death in December 2011, after ruling NoKor for almost two decades.

In fact, the former army chief was also one of seven top officials to accompany the younger Kim as he followed the hearse containing his father’s body at his state funeral.

Ri was seen as having a key role in the transition of power in NoKor, from Kim Jong-il to his son, Kim Jong-un.

That Ri was removed because of “illness” without specifying details of his condition or any indication of his successor as head of the army leaves many skeptics wondering if this is the beginning of a new direction Kim Jong Un wants North Korea to go – with him fully in control of the military.

 

 

Rocket launch failure humiliates NoKor leader

 

The Unha-3 rocket which ended in failure

North Korea’s much-hyped launching of a long-range rocket, amidst warnings from the international community and concerned pleadings from neighboring Asian countries not to proceed with it, ended in an embarrassing failure for the young, untested, yet defiant leader Kim Jong Un.

Whether it was a flaw in ballistic missile technology or a divine intervention, the fact is it has given much sense of relief to many countries that the launching did not succeed.

The West and neighbors of the most isolated nation on earth said they suspected the action was a precursor to a nuclear test, debunking all the time the rogue nation’s assertion that it was for putting an observation satellite into orbit.

The rocket’s projected trajectory placed South Korea, Japan and the Philippines on heightened alert in case the launching could potentially endanger citizens and property in those nations.

The Japanese government, which has been monitoring closely the launching, said the missile disintegrated into pieces while still in North Korean territory or over South Korean waters.

The failed launch of the Unha-3 rocket happened in an unpropitious time when it was meant to dedicate its success to the 100-year anniversary of late founding father Kim Il-Sung’s birth.

The young, rotund Kim Jong Un

But, most of all, it was an ominous signal beamed to the whole world, and most especially to the Western powers, that the young, rotund-face egomaniac of a leader is capable of filling up the shoes and leading North Korea the way his father, Kim Jong-Il and grandfather, Kim Il-Sung did before him.

Alas, it did not go the way it was planned.

With this humiliating failure in Kim Jong-Un’s nascent leadership, will his pricked ego be a lesson in humility or will it turn him instead to be more of a monster and spend more money trying to develop and perfect the long range missile, holding hostage the international community while his people continue dying in starvation?

Could the international community depend on China, NoKor’s big brother, in restraining and taming this malevolent and capricious hermit country and turning it into a responsible member in the world of nations?

Will Russia be authoritative enough to be able to compel NoKor to attend to the needs of its people instead of engaging all the time in provocative acts, and wasting its money on weapons and propaganda displays?

NoKor should start realizing that there is more to gain for the country and its citizens when integrating with the world community rather than staying isolated and chanting the mantra of their self-sustaining policy.

For the moment, however, one can’t help but wonder how many heads are lined up on the chopping board for making the rocket launch a failure and humiliating Kim Jong Un? And whose heads is it going to be?

 

 

 

 

North Korea: From ‘the Dear Leader’ to ‘the Great Successor’

 

Kim Jong Il and successor son, Kim Jong Un

North Korea’s enigmatic leader, Kim Jong Il, he of the famed  bouffant hairstyle, platform shoes and jump suits, who have earned the moniker ‘The Dear Leader’ after succeeding his father, the late Kim Il Sung, known as “the Great Leader,” has been announced to have died from a heart attack while travelling on a private train. He was 69.

The question now is: Could his anointed successor, his youngest son, Kim Jong Un, who is in his 20s, and better known now as the ‘the Great Successor,’ be worthy of the leadership, up to the task, and win the allegiance of the leading generals in the National Defense Commission (NDC) and be able once more to steer this impoverished nation with the dynastic grip that the leaders before him had done?

Or is this the beginning of a realization by North Koreans that there is yet a better life than immortalizing with an elaborate cult of personality around the Kim family who has brought them nothing but continuous misery and their existence thrown to the back burners of civilization.

Will Kim Jong Un, like his father, continue adopting Songun, or a “military-first” policy in order to strengthen the country and its government and go on provoking the world, especially neighboring South Korea and Japan, by making threats with their nuclear capability and at times aiming (or maybe all the time) their arsenal of missiles at them when things won’t go their way?

How much longer will civilized nations put up with this unpredictable and rogue of a nation that has bee fueling global anxiety on whether or not it will be sharing its weapons of mass destruction to terrorist movements for financial consideration?

With China’s public endorsement of the power handover, even before Kim Jong Il’s death, the possibility that the son will continue the provocative and suppressive regime started by his grandfather and father, shall never be doubted.

Remember that China is North Korea’s significant ally and it is the former’s staunched and unconditional support that is is giving this villainous nation a ‘peacock stance’ on the world stage.

Whatever is China’s motivation, the fact remains that this emerging power wants ‘the Great Successor’ to pick up where his father left off, if only to maintain the overall status quo in the homeland and in the region.

China’s action is simply sending a strong message to the NDC not to rock the boat and the neighboring countries in the peninsula not to think of undermining the stability of North Korea.

China tries to condition the minds of all concern that the North Korean people would “turn their grief into strength, unite as one, and continue to advance the cause of socialism.”

Young and inexperience that Kim Jong Un is, it is most likely that he will be under the tutorial and guidance of Chinese apparatchik to ensure that North Korea’s socialist system will stay.

North Korean children in dire need of food

 

So, what else is new?

The world is seeing again rare pictures from inside North Korea (NK) showing children suffering from acute malnutrition.

In a hospital ward in South Hwanghae Province, emaciated toddlers are shown covered with antiseptic, and attached to drips.

And it is not getting any better. Natural disasters like typhoons and floods are causing food shortages.

What is adding to the food scarcity woes is that the US has suspended aid to this rouge state over concerns that the country’s government was diverting donated food for its own purposes.

South Korea also stopped providing assistance after the North shelled Yeonpyeong Island last year, the worst bombardment since the end of the Korean War in 1953.

On top of it, most of the country’s economic woes stem from UN sanctions imposed as a result of its nuclear program.

But, which poor country hasn’t been hit by natural calamities lately, from Bangladesh to the Philippines?

And yet, are we forcing people to starve to death? Are we allowing the widespread practice of mixing “wild foods” like tree bark and weeds with grains in order to “make food go further,” as they do in North Korea?

The late Great Leader and “Eternal President” Kim Il-sung introduced the personal philosophy of Juche, or self-reliance, which became a guiding light for North Korea’s development, but, it is never enough unless government gives it a sustainable boost.

His successor, Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il, he with the bouffant hairstyle and who wears platform shoes to appear taller than his 1.57m (5ft 3in), has certainly extended his father’s Juche philosophy, but continues to remain an enigma on whether or not he has a cunning mind of a master manipulator or simply an irrational madman.

For how can NK be an impoverished nation, replete with malnourished citizens and dependent on international food aid when it can spend billions for their military and nuclear arsenals which they flaunt in a massive military parade, together with their goose-stepping troops, every time they celebrate the anniversary of their country’s founding?

When will the North Koreans wake up and realize that they had been had and that all their woes are man-made?

 

NORTH KOREA OFFERS RETURN TO NEGOTIATING TABLE OVER NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Xinhua news agency, a Chinese state media, has reported North Korea’s willingness to go back to international talks to discuss the rising tension about its nuclear weapons program.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is said to have made the offer to the visiting envoy of Chinese President Hu Jintao.

Kim Jong-il told the envoy, Dai Bingguo, that “North Korea will continue adhering towards the goal of denuclearization… and is willing to resolve the relevant problems through bilateral and multilateral talks,” Xinhua said.

This latest move from North Korea’s ailing dictator is deemed to be a shift in tactics after months of ratcheting up foreign anxieties with nuclear test and missile launches.

Analysts say North Korea has used its weapons tests to improve its technology and bolster support for the regime after the illness of the leader, Kim Jong-il. But they also believe it is attempting to grab the attention of the US and push it into direct negotiations.

It must be remembered that North Korea pulled out of the six-party talks in April after criticism of the long-range rocket launch.

This latest Pyongyang statement, therefore, acknowledges and welcomes the declaration issued by Washington last week that the US was prepared to talk directly with North Korea to resume stalled negotiations.