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N.K. leader drags uncle from top of pecking order

By Choi He-suk

Jang Song-thaek, speculated to be dismissed from No. 2 post in North Korea, was the uncle, guardian, mentor and a reformist hand to young leader Kim Jong-un.

Seoul’s National Intelligence Service told lawmakers Tuesday that the vice chairman of North Korea’s National Defense Commission is likely to have been fired. Lawmakers said that information about measures, if any, taken against his person has not been verified.

The spy agency said it confirmed that at least some of his close associates had been publicly executed on charges of anti-party activity, one of the gravest crimes in the communist country.

The organization under his control was incapacitated or dissolved, it added.

As for Jang, he has been staying out of the public eye this year after his close associates came under the authorities’ scrutiny for corruption, the government source said.

As the husband of Kim Jong-un’s aunt Kim Kyong-hui, younger sister of his father Kim Jong-il, is widely considered to be the most influential aide for the fledgling leader.

His rise began in the early 1970s when he married the North Korea’s deceased national founder Kim Il-sung’s daughter. After marriage he began as a mid-level official with in the communist party, and by the mid 1980s he had risen to become a leading figure within the Supreme Peoples Assembly. In 1992 he was raised further, being included in the core group of North Korea’s communist party.

Although he was cast out from the center of power in 2002 after he was found to have used state funds for personal use, he returned to power in 2006.

Under Kim Jong-un, he rose to unrivaled status.

Soon after Kim Jong-il’s death in 2011, Jang was made a four-star general giving him significant influence over the North’s military despite having spent almost all of his adult life in the communist party.

As the director of the ruling party’s administration, he heads the Ministry of State Security, the North’s top intelligence agency, and the Ministry of People’s Security, which is similar to Seoul’s National Policy Agency.

Buoyed by the ever-increasing power, he has been seen engaging actions unprecedented in the reclusive state.

In January, Jang was caught on the North’s Korean Central Television appearing bored and inattentive while Kim was giving a speech. The scene was taken by Seoul’s experts as being testament of how high Jang had risen within Pyongyang’s leadership as Kim’s guardian Experts say that Jang’s being seen as wearing the same suit as the North Korean leader – a scene unimaginable under Kim Jong-il – last year also supports this assessment.

Experts say, however, that his rise in power may have caused his downfall.

“You want to eliminate the people that pose the greatest threat... Jang has been purged twice before,” said Daniel Pinkston, Deputy Project Director, North East Asia, International Crisis Group. He added that actions taken against Jang are likely to be extension of an internal issue for solidifying Kim Jong-un’s rule.

“And you also have to exercise punishments and be ruthless... and exercise deadly force.”

In addition to being a major player in Pyongyang’s inner circle, Jang is also said to have been a reformist.

Jang is reported to have advised Kim Jong-il to implement measures for reforming and opening North Korea, with late Hwang Jang-yop referring to him as a figure “with reformist tendencies, who will lead North Korea after Kim Jong-il.” Hwang is a North Korean defector who served in a top post within North Korea’s communist party.

Others, including former U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asia Christopher Hill have shown different assessments of Jang.

Hill referred to Jang as only appearing to be a reformist and that he will serve to extend the Kim family’s idolization.

(cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)