To All the Cadres Who’ve Been Purged Before

(With many thanks to Joe for sending this)

Chosun Ilbo, citing Radio Free Asia, reports that the Publication (Press) Censorship Bureau has ordered that images and writings of recently executed or disappeared Party and state officials be removed from histories, reports and other documents and literature.   Among those officials excised are the former CC KWP Financial Planning Director Pak Nam Gi, and former Minister of Railways, Kim Yong Sam.

A nationwide campaign is underway recently in North Korea to get rid of photos and publications of executed former senior officials, Radio Free Asia claimed Tuesday.

This campaign was ordered by leader Kim Jong-il on July 2. The North’s Press Censorship Bureau is reportedly destroying documents and materials collected from across the country.

According to RFA, the campaign’s targets include Pak Nam-gi, the former director of the North Korean Workers Party’s Planning and Finance Department who was executed in March over the disastrous currency reform, and former railways minister Kim Yong-sam.

“Railway workers suffering from the food shortage stole copper and aluminum parts from locomotive trains that were in store for wartime and sold them as scrap metal. As a result, about 100 locomotives were scrapped,” it claimed. “This was revealed in an inspection by the National Defense Commission in 2008.” Kim Yong-sam was then taken to the State Security Department and executed in March the following year, it added.

Kim Yong-sam was appointed railways minister in September 1998 but has not been seen in public since October 2008, when he was replaced by current minister Jon Kil-su.

A Unification Ministry official said rumors about his execution are “rampant.”

The Publications (Press) Censorship Bureau is subordinate to the General Bureau of Publications Guidance, part of the CC KWP Propaganda and Agitation Department.  It is one of four or five bureaus within PAD that responsible for regulating publishing and media in the DPRK.   From the 1990s to around 2003, the General Bureau of Publications Guidance was directed by Ri Jae Il, now a PAD deputy (vice) director, who  routinely escorts Kim Jong Il on his visits.

Former DPRK Minister of Railways, Kim Yong Sam (Chosun Ilbo)

DPRK Minister of Railways, Jon Kil Su

KJI Concerned About “Unrest” in Early February Over Money Crunch (revised 18 April)

Choson Ilbo, citing a story from Open Radio for NK, reports that Kim Jong Il was worried about public discontent at a meeting in early February.

At a meeting on Feb. 2 in which he received a briefing on the progress in the North’s project to earn dollars, Kim said, “If the most important thing is single-minded unity under current circumstances, public sentiment is the very basis of such a unity,” the radio quoted a high-level North Korean source as saying. “If this problem is solved, it will not be as difficult to earn foreign exchange as now,” he reportedly added.

His remarks suggested he, in fact, admitted that he has difficulty raising his own funds and that the North Korean people are agitated.

In early February, officials previously known to earn foreign currency for the regime in the Third Floor, took on a greater prominence in the country’s economic activities.  If this report on KJI’s state of mind is accurate, it may explain reports of the execution or incarceration of Pak Nam Gi, and one of the vice chairmen of the State Planning Commission.

KJI’s concerns about security were likely assuaged.  The Ministry of Public Security was upgraded, and directly subordinated to the National Defense Commission.  The chief of the State Security Department was given a military promotion.  While MPS was already on the fast track for the Supreme Commander’s affections, and U Tong Chuk’s promotion was not entirely unexpected, the lack of any major, and embarrassing, popular revolts may have facilitated, if not ensured, these institutional and career advancements.

KJI’s concerns about earning foreign currency may take more time.  Yonhap, citing sources in Beijing, reports that Office #39 (3rd Floor) deputy director (and KJI high school buddy) Jon Il Chun had traveled to China around 9 April.  He is also, concurrently, President of the State Development Bank and chief executive of DPRK Taephung International Investment Group, acting on behalf of the National Defense Commission.

Jon Il Chun was reportedly leading a delegation to Beijing to negotiate and attract investments in the country.  Mr. Jon was one of the foreign currency-earning technocrats KJI promoted to handle the economic fallout from the 2009 currency redenomination.

Meanwhile, Kyodo reports that the public face of the DPRK Taephung International Investment Group Pak Chol Su (whom one recent report noted does not sport a KJI badge) is talking up Rason, the country’s other ports and other infrastructure repair:

North Korea has launched a five-year, $120 billion infrastructure-building project in eight cities as part of a 10-year plan to rebuild the economy, a manager of a state-run investment group said Friday.

Pak Chol Su, chairman of the Korea Taepung International Investment Group, expressed hope companies from Japan, South Korea and other neighboring countries will invest in the development plan that began this year.

”We believe the plan will lead to the establishment of a Northeast Asian economic community” involving the two Koreas, China, Japan and Russia, Pak said in an interview with Kyodo News in Pyongyang.

Kim Jong Il conducts a field guidance tour of the renovated Hyangsan Hotel in North Pyongan Province in late January 2010. The official on the left is Han Kwang Sang, deputy director of the KWP Financial Planning Department. (Photo: KCNA).

The Megaphone War and Light Water Reactors

In a 29 March editorial Korean Central News Agency hits back at external observation and reporting about KJI’s health, its internal economic situation and recent contingency planning around the country:

Pyongyang – There is now a deluge of “news” about the internal situation in the DPRK from the US, Japan and South Korea.

Various kinds of “reports” are pouring in to give impression that “contingency” is imminent in the DPRK and wild rumors about even the health of the supreme leader are afloat. There are “analysis and comment” that shortage of food and economic difficulties are more serious than those in the 1990s due to the “failure of monetary reform”.

There is also misinformation that the DPRK continues missile and other arms smuggling, its nuclear capacity is being steadily bolstered up, there is concern about its possible proliferation of nuclear weapons and it is opening Rajin Port and sending workers to foreign countries en masse in a bid to earn foreign currency due to financial difficulties. The scenario for vituperation seems to know no bound.

The campaign to mislead the public opinion by concentrically and malignantly tarnishing the image of the other party by such specialized methods and means of psychological warfare has been called a black propaganda campaign. This campaign naturally seeks an aim. Behind this despicable propaganda are forces displeased with any investment in the DPRK. It is aimed at holding in check investment in the DPRK in a bid to hamstring its efforts to improve the people’s standard of living by focusing efforts on economic construction.

The DPRK uses the editorial to announce that will build a light water reactor:

They would be well advised to remember that the DPRK has a firm foundation of the independent national economy which remains solid despite any storm from outside.

The DPRK will witness the appearance of a light water reactor power plant relying on its own nuclear fuel in the near future in the 2010s in the wake of mass-production of juche iron and Juche-based vinalon cotton, its reply to them.

While Kyodo focuses on the megaphone war, Xinhua’s report emphasizes the construction of the light water reactor:

Media reports from the United States, South Korea and Japan are pointing to an economic crisis in the DPRK, which is not true, according to the KCNA.

These reports are giving impression that “contingency” is imminent in the DPRK as shortage of food and economic difficulties are more serious than those in the 1990s due to the failure of monetary reform, it said.

There are even rumors about the health of DPRK supreme leader Kim Jong Il, it added.

“They would be well advised to remember that the DPRK has a firm foundation of an independent national economy which remains solid despite any storm from outside,” said the KCNA.

The DPRK announced it would “develop a light water reactor actively” last April. In September last year, the DPRK’s representative to the United Nations told the Security Council that the country had succeeded in experimental uranium enrichment.

The editorial seems to be a continuation of one from last week which named several defector-staffed, ROK-based media outfits as participating in “smear campaigns.”  It also seems to be a response to reports* about testimony to US Congressional committees by General Walter Sharp and Admiral Robert Willard, a portion of which addressed contingencies on the Peninsula.

The announcement of the construction of the light water reactor may well set the table for the 2nd session of the 12th Supreme People’s Assembly on 9 April.  In terms of succession;  the light water reactor may also be another propaganda accomplishment the Party History Institute will add to the Morningstar General’s resume.

*I need to underscore that this editorial seems a response to the media coverage and reporting (which focused on contingency planning) on General Sharp’s and Admiral Willard’s testimony to US House and US Senate (sub-) committees, and not the testimony itself.

The Lonesome Death of Pak Nam-gi (?)

"Drumming in the morning, in the evening they'll be coming for you." Pak Nam-gi (2nd from left) at the Sokjong Cooperative Farm in late November 2009, right before the DPRK redenominated its currency (Photo: KCNA).

The Daily NK has another account of the reported execution of Pak Nam Gi:

Park, the former Director of the Planning and Financial Department of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party, was denounced as a traitor and arrested in late January.

Thereafter, “At 2 P.M. on March 12th at the Seosan Stadium in the Athletes’ Village, Pyongyang, Park Nam Ki was executed before cadres in the economic field and Party Central Committee officials,” a source from Pyongyang told The Daily NK on Sunday.

“Immediately before the execution, the judge is said to have criticized Park as ‘a historical traitor who trapped the people in misery with this redenomination,’” the source added.

According to the source, an unknown Vice-Chairperson of the National Planning Commission was shot alongside Park. According to information received by the South Korean Ministry of Unification, the new Chairperson of the National Planning Commission is Noh Du Cheol, while the First Vice-Chairpersons are Kang In Sam and Park Chang Ryeon. There are also a further seven Vice-Chairpersons, including Cho Young Nam.

The Sosan Stadium where DNK reports the execution occurred is located here in Mangyongdae District in southwestern Pyongyang.

UPDATE

JoongAng pulsates in the same vein as Kang Chol-hwan’s Chosun Ilbo piece.  Based on ROK observation of North Korean media, footage of Pak Nam-gi accompanying KJI last fall has been cut from regularly aired documentaries.

From Feb. 24 to March 2, and again on March 19 and 20, North’s Korea Central Television aired a documentary of Kim Jong-il’s field inspections to factories and farms last November. Pak was spotted four times in the broadcast between Feb. 24 and March 2. However, parts where Pak appeared in the background were all deleted from the same film that aired on March 19 and 20.

“As far as I understand, the North ordered Pak’s appearances to be edited out of all documentaries,” a Seoul government official said.

ORIGINAL

Kang Chol-hwan has a fascinating report in Chosun Ilbo placing Pak Nam-gi in the company of other North Korean elites identified as KJI’s policy scapegoats.

In 1997, another party leader was publicly executed in Pyongyang. So Kwan-hi, the then party secretary for agricultural affairs, had also been close to Kim Il-sung. Charged with minor graft, he was made a scapegoat by Kim Jong-il for the mass starvation. He was denounced as a spy for the U.S. imperialist and shot in front of tens of thousands of people. The State Security Agency claimed the starvation was all So Kwan-hi’s fault, and North Koreans believed that, unable to credit that their “dear leader” himself could be to blame.

When the Lee Myung-bak government took office in 2008, Pyongyang started setting up another scapegoat. Choi Sung-chol, the former deputy director of the party’s United Front Department, was thrown in a concentration camp because Kim Jong-il was angry about the unexpected election result in the South, where he had thought the Left would win.

Owing to conflicting reports, it remains unclear whether Mr. Pak, recently director of the KWP Financial Planning Department, was executed or if he has been expelled, or undergoing re-education.   Tokyo Shimbun cites an anonymous source who says that while Pak Nam-gi was dismissed, “I haven’t been informed that he was executed.”

According to the report of his execution, he was sternly criticized at his Party Cell meeting, denounced as the descendant of land-owners, and killed by firing squad on the outskirts of Pyongyang.  If Pak Nam-gi has been incarcerated or executed, who initiated the criticism within his Party Cell?  If he was executed, who was the political manager?

While the prospects of Pak Nam-gi hobbling (hey, maybe KJI let him off by having his legs broken) up to the rostrum in April at the second session of the 12th SPA appear remote , the KWP-controlled  National Reconciliation Council via the DPRK’s external press responds directly to the sources of the reports of PNG’s plight:

In another development, the group even let “defectors from the north” to conduct various forms of anti-DPRK smear campaigns such as “broadcasting for reforms in the north”, “broadcasting for leading the north to opening” and “daily NK” in a bid to utter a spate of anti-DPRK vituperation. It also made them visit puppet army units and even foreign countries so that they might appear in “security lectures” and “seminars” and at “interviews” to hurl mud at the DPRK. And it instigated them to scatter leaflets, stage such foolish anti-DPRK charade as “opera” and “art performances” and publication of novels and memoirs.

What should not be overlooked is that the puppet group has made no scruple of hurting the supreme headquarters of the DPRK, not content with raising a hue and cry over its situation while working with blood-shot eyes to spy it with human scum involved.

One of the above-mentioned news outlets, Daily NK, carries an unconfirmed report that the KIS-era octogenarian former Minister of Finance Yun Ki-jong is leading State economic interventions.

And here I was with high hopes (and bloodshot eyes) that KJI would continue chipping away at the gerontocracy in Pyongyang.

Pak Nam-gi (1st from R) during KJI's tour of the Chollima (Kangson) Steel Complex in December 2008 (Photo: KCNA)

Pak Nam-gi (1st from R) during KJI's November 2009 tour of the Hungnam Fertilizer Factory (Photo: KCNA)

Rumors of Pak Nam-gi Arrest and Execution

Pak Nam-gi, 2nd from Left, at the Mansudae Apartment Complex in Pyongyang with Kim Jong-il in October 2009 (Photo: KCNA).

UPDATE

The Daily NK has another account of the reported execution of Pak Nam Gi:

Park, the former Director of the Planning and Financial Department of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party, was denounced as a traitor and arrested in late January.

Thereafter, “At 2 P.M. on March 12th at the Seosan Stadium in the Athletes’ Village, Pyongyang, Park Nam Ki was executed before cadres in the economic field and Party Central Committee officials,” a source from Pyongyang told The Daily NK on Sunday.

“Immediately before the execution, the judge is said to have criticized Park as ‘a historical traitor who trapped the people in misery with this redenomination,’” the source added.

According to the source, an unknown Vice-Chairperson of the National Planning Commission was shot alongside Park. According to information received by the South Korean Ministry of Unification, the new Chairperson of the National Planning Commission is Noh Du Cheol, while the First Vice-Chairpersons are Kang In Sam and Park Chang Ryeon. There are also a further seven Vice-Chairpersons, including Cho Young Nam.

The Sosan Stadium where DNK reports the execution occurred is located here in Mangyongdae District in southwestern Pyongyang.

ORIGINAL

Citing Seoul-based defectors with Northern ties, Daily NK reports that KWP Financial Planning Director Pak Nam-gi was recently arrested.  The story dispels rumors of Mr. Pak’s execution, but it cites his reports to KJI as what may have done him in:

It is alleged that before the redenomination he submitted a report claiming that the authorities would be able to improve the people’s lives and secure the national budget if they implemented it. This got Kim Jong Il’s agreement, however, soaring prices and exchange rates proved him wrong, and he was fired.

Defectors in Seoul with connections in North Korea say that Park was then publicly denounced as a traitor at a Party convention on the subject of the redenomination in Pyongyang in late-January, and arrested on the spot. Some of them have also heard rumors that he has been executed, though these are unverified.

After Park’s dismissal, officials who had been in charge of trade with China and economic cooperation with the South apparently took on his tasks in the economic field of the Central Committee of the Party.

On the other hand, Yonhap, citing numerous sources reports that Pak Nam-gi was executed in Pyongyang:

North Korea executed a former top finance official last week, holding him responsible for the country’s currency reform fiasco that has caused massive inflation, worsened food shortages and dented leader Kim Jong-il’s efforts to transfer power to a son, sources said Thursday.

Pak Nam-gi, who was reportedly sacked in January as chief of the planning and finance department of the ruling Workers’ Party, was executed at a shooting range in Pyongyang, multiple sources familiar with information on North Korea told Yonhap News Agency.

“All the blame has been poured on Pak after the currency reform failure exacerbated public sentiment and had a bad effect” on leader Kim Jong-il’s plan to hand power over to his third son Kim Jong-un, one source told Yonhap on condition of anonymity.

You can read about Pak Nam-gi’s career here.

ICG Study on NK Under UN Sanctions

The International Crisis Group has published a study as an Update Briefing under the title North Korea Under Tightening Sanctions.  The study suggests that the recent UN sanctions, currency redenomination and the unfolding succession campaign have created cleavages among North Korean elites. From the report’s overview:

Outwardly, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) appears stable. However, the country has been shaken by constricting international sanctions, extremely poor policy choices, and several internal challenges that have the potential to trigger instability. International sanctions have reduced foreign exchange earnings, while humanitarian assistance, which feeds millions of North Koreans, has declined due to political factors and donor fatigue. In addition to sanctions, Pyongyang has been dealing with the internal pressures of a disastrous currency reform as well as a chronic and deteriorating food security problem. The aggregate pressure is already taking a toll on North Korea’s human security and could have a number of unanticipated consequences for regional and international security.

Some analysts and policymakers believe international sanctions have pressured North Korea to seek a face-saving return to the Six-Party Talks and better inter-Korean ties. Although Pyongyang’s opaque policymaking process makes it nearly impossible to understand regime motivations, the pressures of cascading and overlapping “mini crises” are unmistakable just as the country has had to face difficult succession issues. However, the DPRK has demonstrated an extraordinary ability to survive under pressure. Any of the current challenges – as singular problems – should be manageable. The state security apparatus and the barriers to collective action make a “revolution from below” virtually impossible. But despite the loyalty of elites in the party and the military, a sudden split in the leadership, although unlikely, is not out of the question. Signs of any fissures would not be observable from the outside until a power struggle, a coup d’état, collapse or similar crisis was already unfolding.

Yonhap has a story about the report’s release.  You can read the report’s overview/executive summary here.  You can also download a PDF copy of the full report here.

Premier’s Mea Culpa and Reappearances

Kim Kyong-hui (4th from left) and DPRK Premier Kim Yong-il (3rd from right) pose with Kim Jong-il and factory managers of the 8 February Vinalon Complex (Photo KCNA via DPRK.blog)

According to several reports, DPRK Premier Kim Yong-il took one for the team on the currency redenomination.  Premier Kim apologized “about the currency reform as we pushed ahead with it without sufficient preparation and it caused a great pain to the people” at a Pyongyang meeting on Monday.  Premier Kim joined Kim Jong-il’s second day of inspection at the 8 February Vinalon Complex in Hamhung, South Hamgyong.  Back to business, I suppose.

According to Dong-a Ilbo citing Free North Korea Radio, the North Korean internal security apparatus is back in business,  scrutinizing people using mobile telephones to report on the country’s internal situation.  These new enforcement actions seem to stem from the MPS/SSD joint statement:

Pyongyang said Monday that the attempt to overthrow the government has exceeded a dangerous level and issued a warning.

The report quoted a source in North Korea located in Onsong County, North Hamkyong Province, as saying a secretary of the ruling Workers’ Party made workers confess whether they had mobile phones or improperly recorded videos Monday.

The workers were ordered to “give their mobile phones to security agencies or throw them over the walls of security centers or the State Security Department within two days.”

“If you follow the order, you are generously forgiven, but if you’re caught using a cell phone, you are considered a traitor and severely punished,” the source said.

And Minister of the People’s Armed Forces and NDC Vice Chairman, VMAR Kim Yong-chun is alive and well and smelling the roses.  VMAR Kim joined KJI at the performance of Evgeni Onegin late last week.  He also held a meeting and said his goodbyes with the outgoing PRC Ambassador the the DPRK.  (Thanks to Nicolas)

Outgoing PRC Ambassador Liu Xiaoming converses with NDC Vice Chairman and Minister of the PAF VMAR Kim Yong-chun (Photo: Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea).

Pak Man’s Fate

"I see better days and I do better things": Pak Nam-gi (center) with VMAR Kim Yong-chun (who has not appeared in North Korean media for some time) and Jang Song-thaek (Photo: KCNA).

Pak Nam-gi has not appeared in the North Korean media since a rally on 9 January.   But there remains no definitive confirmation that he was dismissed from his position.  A report about Mr. Pak’s vagrancy in JoongAng Daily tempers recent speculation with a bit of reality:

“We understand Pak has not been visible for some time now,” a government source said. “But whether he has been fired is an entirely different matter. Unless someone else takes his post, we can’t say for sure.”

Local reports speculate that Pak was held accountable after the redenomination of the North Korean won in November caused inflation and even riots.

A few other thoughts about Pak Nam-gi’s invisbility:

–He is 81 years old and with a five decade career in Party and State, he may simply be retired; Mr. Pak’s cohorts are still on the road with Kim Jong-il and otherwise appearing in the North Korean media.

–  While the leadership’s position is not presently subject to challenge, cleavages remain among North Korean elites and Kim Jong-il will not exacerbate these divisions while a possible succession campaign unfolds.

–The obvious failures of the currency redenomination provide Kim Jong-il and his deputies the excuse to begin the possible transfer of the KWP Financial Planning Department’s responsibilities into the National Defense Commission.

Morningstar Blips

Kim Jong-un

January 8, 2010 may have been a holiday in the DPRK, after all.  In a report about a barter system taking effect among North Korean citizens, a source talking to Daily NK said,“On January 8, people had a day off for Kim Jong Eun’s birthday, but it did not interest them. The succession issue cannot hold people’s interest; they just want everything to be put in order.”

Putting things in order with regard to succession is the point of Cho Myung-chol’s essay in JoongAng Daily.  Mr. Cho is a program director at the Korea Institute for Economic Policy.  He cites the hiccups associated with last year’s currency denomination as the need for Pyongyang to get its sheepdogs together to get the succession flock out:

Needless to say, there are no fundamental conflicts when the people in power are father and son, and the successor is obliged to respect and follow the ideology and ruling methods of earlier generations.

However, the early stage of a transfer of power is the time when the successor shows “creativity” and “distinguished wisdom.” In other words, there could be a difference of opinion.

When there is, the Party Central Commission and National Defense Commission simply become the messengers between the two rulers.

The frequent changes of exchange limit during last year’s currency reform was evidence that the orders of the two rulers are in conflict. The recent statement of the National Defense Commission can also be understood in a similar context.

The question is whether prenegotiations between the National Defense Commission, the highest-ruling body of North Korea, and its subsidiary ruling bodies operate without problems.