North Korea has begun three days of celebrations to mark 65 years since the founding of the country's Communist Workers' Party.
For the first time, international media outlets, including Al Jazeera, are getting a rare glimpse inside the communist state - where the celebrations are being broadcast live from the capital, Pyongyang.
The festivities, which culminate in a massive military parade in capital, Pyongyang, on Sunday, are not only to mark the anniversary of communist rule.
North Korean officials are expected to use the weekend's celebrations to declare the historic handover of power from ailing leader Kim Jong-il to his son and heir apparent, Kim Jong-un.
But there was no confirmation that Kim Jong-un would join his father in presiding over Sunday's parade from a viewing platform at Kim Il-sung Plaza.
The parade was expected to be aired live on North Korean state TV in an unusual departure from broadcasting norms in North Korea, where any broadcasts are heavily censored.
"They are going to try to prove that their military might is nothing to be underestimated," Yoo Ho-yeol, a professor of North Korean studies at Korea University in Seoul, said.
Festivities
On Saturday, North Korea's top leadership gathered at May Day Stadium for speeches celebrating the occasion.
Later in the evening, Kim Jong-il brought dancers at the gymnastics extravaganza known as the Arirang mass games to tears by making a rare appearance, accompanied by Kim Jong-un and visiting top Chinese Communist Party official Zhou Yongkang.
Kim Jong-il waved to the crowd, drawing a frenzy of applause from onlookers, in what is believed to be his first appearance at the Arirang spectacle in years.
The two Kims' appearance turned the Arirang show - part theatre, part circus, and involving some 100,000 performers - into a VIP event attended by wartime heroes, foreign dignitaries and the international press, who were given front-row seats.
The festivities began on Friday night with fireworks that lit up the sky over central Pyongyang.
Students danced across the city's plazas and brass bands played "Please Receive the Best Wishes of the People," the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported.
Yang Hyong Sop, a senior official in the country's ruling party, told the Associated Press news agency on Friday that North Koreans will be honoured to follow Kim Jong-un.
"Our people take pride in the fact that they are blessed with great leaders from generation to generation," Yang said.
"Our people are honoured to be led by the great president Kim Il Sung and the great general Kim Jong-il. Now we also have the honour of being led by General Kim Jong-un."
Kim Jong-il announced his youngest known son's appointment to two important political posts late last month in what was regarded as the first step in his succession plan.
The senior Kim came to power when his father died of heart failure in 1994, setting in motion the communist world's first hereditary transfer of power.
He was officially chosen as successor in 1972, when he was elected to the party's central committee, and the same scenario could hold true for his son.
The question of who will take over from the elder Kim, believed to suffer from a host of ailments, is important to regional dynamics as well as security, because of North Korea's active nuclear and missile programmes, and regular threats it makes against rival South Korea.
Kim Jong-il rules under a songun (military-first) policy with a 1.2 million-member armed services.
Sunday, 10 October 2010
Re Kim Jong Un today
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| The remarkable thing is the opportunity that the change enables. With China as its loyal friend and adviser in terms of developing the DPRK along lines of the China Model of State Capitalism, it wouldn't take very many years, maybe two decades, for the DPRK to emerge as a very powerful, modern state engaged with the world, nuclear-equipped and at peace, and at the same time significantly influencing economic and military decisions in the tectonic North Asia Region. I think this is maybe what the West, Japan and South Korea fear most... not a mad hermit kingdom but rather a strong and still centrally socialist competitor in all areas, fast paced economic growth, and legitimately assertive in terms of resolution of old land and sea borders established by the now waning Americans. This is not American Globalism, this is Asia for Asia in a possible blend of neo-Confucianism (the other Neo-Cons), State Capitalism, Centralist Socialism, Juche, Korean Royalty and old traditional Shamanism. With porous borders with the People's Republic and with Russia, trade routes become very easy and could be very expansive. The North has massive and untapped resources. I wish them well. I hope they find their own radical and proud way forward. I think it may be very fast if Un can survive his own rise. It's not an easy system. |
Pyongyang Today from NYTimes
SEOUL, South Korea — The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, attended a massive military parade with his youngest son and designated successor on Sunday as the ruling Communist regime celebrated the 65th founding of its Workers’ Party.
The son, Kim Jong-un, wearing a dark suit despite his recent promotion to four-star general, watched the festivities and reviewed squads of goose-stepping troops with his 68-year-old father and other senior politicians and generals. The event was held in Kim Il-sung Square, named for Kim Jong-un’s grandfather, the founder of the North Korean state.
Video footage from the celebration in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, showed tens of thousands of performers and soldiers arrayed in what was said to be the largest such event in the country’s history. For the first time, a few dozen Western media organizations, including some American outlets, were allowed to attend the festivities and report live from the square.
The elder Mr. Kim, who is said to be in poor health after apparently suffering a stroke in 2008, has hurried the succession of Kim Jong-un in recent weeks. At a landmark Workers’ Party meeting last month, Kim Jong-un was made a general and received two significant positions in the party.
Other members of the Kim family and the leader’s inner circle also received new posts and promotions as the leadership hierarchy was reshuffled to provide Kim Jong-un with mentors and supporters as he solidifies his power.
Little is known about Kim Jong-un, who is believed to be 27 or 28. He is the youngest of Mr. Kim’s three sons — the older brothers were uninterested or deemed incapable of leadership — and he attended school for a time in Bern, Switzerland. He is known to speak some English, and he likely speaks German as well. Until last month’s party meeting, very few pictures of him had been seen in public.
The Workers’ Party anniversary is typically a major national holiday in North Korea, with citizens receiving food handouts from the government. The theme of the celebration Sunday was heavily military, befitting Kim Jong-il’s guiding philosophy of songun, or military first. Nuclear-armed North Korea has a huge standing army, with 1.2 million soldiers, and its border with South Korea is one of the world’s most heavily militarized.
There was no immediate reaction from the South Korean government to Sunday’s parade in the North, but the conservative administration of President Lee Myung-bak has taken a hard line against North Korea, and relations between the two countries remain strained. The South blames a North Korean torpedo attack for the sinking of one of its naval vessels, the Cheonan, an incident in March that killed 46 sailors. The North has denied any role in the sinking.
The son, Kim Jong-un, wearing a dark suit despite his recent promotion to four-star general, watched the festivities and reviewed squads of goose-stepping troops with his 68-year-old father and other senior politicians and generals. The event was held in Kim Il-sung Square, named for Kim Jong-un’s grandfather, the founder of the North Korean state.
Video footage from the celebration in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, showed tens of thousands of performers and soldiers arrayed in what was said to be the largest such event in the country’s history. For the first time, a few dozen Western media organizations, including some American outlets, were allowed to attend the festivities and report live from the square.
The elder Mr. Kim, who is said to be in poor health after apparently suffering a stroke in 2008, has hurried the succession of Kim Jong-un in recent weeks. At a landmark Workers’ Party meeting last month, Kim Jong-un was made a general and received two significant positions in the party.
Other members of the Kim family and the leader’s inner circle also received new posts and promotions as the leadership hierarchy was reshuffled to provide Kim Jong-un with mentors and supporters as he solidifies his power.
Little is known about Kim Jong-un, who is believed to be 27 or 28. He is the youngest of Mr. Kim’s three sons — the older brothers were uninterested or deemed incapable of leadership — and he attended school for a time in Bern, Switzerland. He is known to speak some English, and he likely speaks German as well. Until last month’s party meeting, very few pictures of him had been seen in public.
The Workers’ Party anniversary is typically a major national holiday in North Korea, with citizens receiving food handouts from the government. The theme of the celebration Sunday was heavily military, befitting Kim Jong-il’s guiding philosophy of songun, or military first. Nuclear-armed North Korea has a huge standing army, with 1.2 million soldiers, and its border with South Korea is one of the world’s most heavily militarized.
There was no immediate reaction from the South Korean government to Sunday’s parade in the North, but the conservative administration of President Lee Myung-bak has taken a hard line against North Korea, and relations between the two countries remain strained. The South blames a North Korean torpedo attack for the sinking of one of its naval vessels, the Cheonan, an incident in March that killed 46 sailors. The North has denied any role in the sinking.
Saturday, 9 October 2010
Jang Song Taek, on the far right in the top picture, with Kim Jong Il
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| “Her husband was a tall, slender, handsome man…as soon as they arrived, Kim Jong-il introduced us. ‘This is my younger sister, Kim Kyong-hui. This is Madame Choi. Say hello.’ Kyong-hui introduced herself first, then her husband said, smiling, ‘How do you do? I’m Chang Song-taek.”–Choi Eun-hee “…he was clever and opportunistic in his own self-interest.”– Hwang Jang Yop on when he met Jang at KISU The election of Jang Song Taek as NDC Vice Chairman on 7 June 2010 reaffirmed his status as one of the regime’s most important personalities. For the time being Jang remains as one of KJI’s primary political managers. Mr. Jang’s four-decade career, charismatic personality and his personal ties across Party, government and the military make him the ideal manager of a hereditary succession campaign. He is also the regime’s most viable option, should the accession of Kim Jong Un become unpalatable. |
Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un and the China Model -from BBC
North Korea has begun the process of political succession in the same idiosyncratic manner it has developed over the decades.
Just as the founder of the state, Kim Il-sung ("The Great Leader"), brought his son Kim Jong-il to the fore 30 years ago, so Kim Jong-il ("The Dear Leader") has now made clear his choice of his youngest son Kim Jong-un (to be known as "The Brilliant Comrade") to be his successor.
The difference may lie in the timing. Kim Jong-il's elevation to the status of heir apparent was in 1980, but it was not until his father died in 1994 that he formally took over power.
It seems unlikely that Kim Jong-un, who is about 27 will have to wait that long.
The present leader, who is 68, is widely thought to be a sick man, who may well have suffered a stroke in 2008. There has been speculation that the reason for delaying the present gathering of the ruling Workers' Party for a fortnight, a remarkable and slightly humiliating change for the North Korean leadership, was that he was ill once again.
If Kim Jong-il's health is indeed failing fast, this may explain why an apparently wide-ranging reshuffle of the leadership structure has emerged at this party meeting.
Hand of China
In the space of a few hours his son, Kim Jon-un became a four-star general, deputy chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party, and a member of the Central Committee.
To bolster his position, the younger Kim's aunt, Kim Kyong-hui, was also made a general, as well as a member of the politburo.
Her husband, Chang Song-taek, is head of the National Defence Commission, and is usually regarded as the power behind the throne.
Behind this may lie a determined effort to assert the control of the Workers' Party over the military, who have traditionally been the leading power in North Korea.
If that is so, it seems likely that the hand of China lies behind much of this. The leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, rather than the foreign ministry, seems to be in charge of China's policy towards North Korea.
There have been clear signs that China would like North Korea to develop in very much the same way as China itself did in the 1970s and 80s, leading to the rampant and highly successful state-controlled capitalism of recent years.
The main architect of this change was Deng Xiaoping. Interestingly, his only formal official position for years was his control over the military committee of China's Communist Party: not very different from the most important of the young Kim Jong-un's new jobs.
China clearly wants reform in North Korea. The signs are that China is prodding North Korea down the path it took itself: control of the military by the Communist Party, and a gradual opening up of the economy to market forces.
To a very small extent, this already seems to be happening. People are being allowed to sell their produce openly in the streets, and at night the police no longer break up the illegal markets held in the darkened streets, as they did until recently.
It may not sound much, but it is very much the way the process began in China, a little over 30 years ago.
Just as the founder of the state, Kim Il-sung ("The Great Leader"), brought his son Kim Jong-il to the fore 30 years ago, so Kim Jong-il ("The Dear Leader") has now made clear his choice of his youngest son Kim Jong-un (to be known as "The Brilliant Comrade") to be his successor.
The difference may lie in the timing. Kim Jong-il's elevation to the status of heir apparent was in 1980, but it was not until his father died in 1994 that he formally took over power.
It seems unlikely that Kim Jong-un, who is about 27 will have to wait that long.
The present leader, who is 68, is widely thought to be a sick man, who may well have suffered a stroke in 2008. There has been speculation that the reason for delaying the present gathering of the ruling Workers' Party for a fortnight, a remarkable and slightly humiliating change for the North Korean leadership, was that he was ill once again.
If Kim Jong-il's health is indeed failing fast, this may explain why an apparently wide-ranging reshuffle of the leadership structure has emerged at this party meeting.
Hand of China
In the space of a few hours his son, Kim Jon-un became a four-star general, deputy chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party, and a member of the Central Committee.
To bolster his position, the younger Kim's aunt, Kim Kyong-hui, was also made a general, as well as a member of the politburo.
Her husband, Chang Song-taek, is head of the National Defence Commission, and is usually regarded as the power behind the throne.
Behind this may lie a determined effort to assert the control of the Workers' Party over the military, who have traditionally been the leading power in North Korea.
If that is so, it seems likely that the hand of China lies behind much of this. The leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, rather than the foreign ministry, seems to be in charge of China's policy towards North Korea.
There have been clear signs that China would like North Korea to develop in very much the same way as China itself did in the 1970s and 80s, leading to the rampant and highly successful state-controlled capitalism of recent years.
The main architect of this change was Deng Xiaoping. Interestingly, his only formal official position for years was his control over the military committee of China's Communist Party: not very different from the most important of the young Kim Jong-un's new jobs.
China clearly wants reform in North Korea. The signs are that China is prodding North Korea down the path it took itself: control of the military by the Communist Party, and a gradual opening up of the economy to market forces.
To a very small extent, this already seems to be happening. People are being allowed to sell their produce openly in the streets, and at night the police no longer break up the illegal markets held in the darkened streets, as they did until recently.
It may not sound much, but it is very much the way the process began in China, a little over 30 years ago.
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