Ri Yong Gil Exonerated

Gen. Ri Yong Gil (left) at one of his last observed appearances in January 2016 (Photo: KCTV screengrab).

ROK media, citing intelligence sources, reports that General Ri Yong Gil has been exonerated by a Ministry of State Security investigation.  According to MBN, he returned to an undisclosed positions within the Korean People’s Army, but “the military does not allow him to take any military projects that he was responsible for” and Ri Yong Gil was demoted by one rank to Colonel-General (sangjang). Out of the woodshed, Ri can try to earn back his lost favor and attain another senior KPA position “through loyalty competitions.”

Ri Yong Gil when he served as Director of the General Staff Operations Bureau in 2013. Also pictured is General Hyon Yong Chol (right), former Chief of the KPA General Staff and former Minister of the People’s Armed Forces, and General Kim Rak Gyom (left), commander of the KPA Strategic Force. Of these three senior members of the DPRK national security community, only General Kim Rak Gyom remains in office (Photo: NK Leadership Watch file photo/KCNA).

Ri Yong Gil served as Chief of the KPA General Staff from August 2013 until early February 2016.  His temporary downfall was noticeable when he failed to appear at a Pyongyang meeting of senior leadership and DPRK citizens on February 8 and was replaced by General Ri Myong Su as head of the General Staff.  Initial open source reporting claimed that Ri Yong Gil had been executed, which incited numerous media reports of a trigger-happy Kim Jong Un (Kim Cho’ng-u’n) wantonly ordering his subordinates to be shot.  This ROK news item corroborates a multi-sourced account from Daily NK and other sources who claimed that Ri Yong Gil was arrested at a joint meeting of the Workers’ Party of Korea [WPK] Central Committee and KPA Party Committee meeting held during February 2 and February 3, was under interrogation and investigation by the Ch’angkwang Security Bureau, but otherwise alive and under house arrest.

A complex of the Ch’angkwang Security Bureau in central Pyongyang (Photo: NK Leadership Watch).

A similar process, as noted by MBN, affected Choe Ryong Hae during 2014 (not rumored to be executed, but under investigation, restored to his old job as head of the KPA General Political Department [bureau] then removed from that office because he wasn’t, as the bean counters like to say, “a good fit”) and  National Defense Commission [NDC] Design Director (and former WPK Finance and Accounting deputy director) Ma Won Chun (rumored to be executed, but under investigation and then restored to his former position), as well as former WPK Finance and Accounting Department Director Han Kwang Sang (also rumored to be executed, under investigation and then migrated to an NDC position).**

 

Ri Yong Gil attending a shooting contest with senior KPA officials (Photo: KCTV screengrab).

Ri Yong Gil attending a meeting with KPA Air Force personnel, alongside Kim Jong Un (Photo: KCTV screen grab).

Another sign, albeit superficial and cosmetic when assessing DPRK political culture, that Ri Yong Gil wasn’t executed is that his image had not been removed from state media photographs or documentary films about Kim Jong Un’s on-site visits and military inspections.  Last weekend, Korean Central Television [KCTV] aired a documentary about Jong Un’s military activities from 2009 through the present.  Ri Yong Gil appears in several frames of the film, as do Hyon Yong Chol and Pyon In Son, both former senior KPA officials were rumored to be executed in 2015 and 2014, respectively.  If these men had been executed, they would have been cropped or washed out of the film footage which is the case with senior officials (i.e. VMar Ri Yong Ho and Jang Song Taek) who completely fell out of favor.

General Pyon In Son with Jong Un at a military inspection. General Pyon was rumored to be executed in late 2014, but remains in official documentaries about Kim Jong Un’s leadership of the military (Photo: KCTV screen grab).

General Hyon Yong Chol with Kim Jong Un at a field inspection. General Hyon was rumored to be executed in May 2915, but remains in official documentaries about Kim Jong Un’s leadership of the military (Photo: KCTV screen grab).

 

{n.b. If you want a fun DPRK elite science experiment, figure out how and why two former Finance and Accounting cadres ended up at the NDC and, in the case of Han Kwang Sang turned up among senior nuclear weapons personnel the other day; make sure to have the Tums and cigarettes close by.}