in kim jong-un’s absence, rumors about him swirl in north korea - nytimes.com

8/11/2019 In Kim Jong-uns Absence, Rumors About Him Swirl in North Korea - NYTimes.com

1/4

10/9/14 3:25 PMIn Kim Jong-uns Absence, Rumors About Him Swirl in North Korea - NYTimes.com

Page 1 of 4http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/09/world/asia/in-kim-jong-uns-absence-rumors-about-him-swirl-in-north-korea.html

http://nyti.ms/1sfvKBv

ASIA PACIFIC | NYT NOW

In Kim Jong-uns Absence, Rumors About HimSwirl in North Korea

By CHOE SANG-HUN OCT. 8, 2014

SEOUL, South Korea In most countries, footage showing the leader with a

limp might have generated some curiosity. But in tightly controlled North

Korea, those images coupled with the disappearance of the countrys ruler,

Kim Jong-un, from public view for five weeks have generated endlessdebate among foreign officials and analysts always on the lookout for

upheaval in one of the worlds most dangerous police states.

The disappearance is especially notable because Mr. Kim, like his father

and grandfather before him, has used public appearances accompanied by

fawning subjects as a key tool of the propaganda machine that has long held

the state together.

For now, American and South Korean officials say that while they thinkthe young leader might be ailing, there is no sign that there has been a coup.

After three generations of Kims, any shift away from dynastic rule would

probably involve unusual movements of the countrys million-plus military or

its people, and none have been detected by the South.

And the fact that North Korea sent three officials widely seen as the Nos.

2, 3 and 4 in the countrys hierarchy to attend the recent closing ceremony of

the Asian Games in South Korea, and that during their visit they agreed to

resume official dialogue with Seoul, suggests that Mr. Kim remains in control,

according to officials and analysts in South Korea.

In Washington, officials have waved off coup rumors as the wishful

thinking of people who have spent years looking for signs of regime collapse

and been serially disappointed.

The last time was when everyone was predicting that Kim Jong-un

would be pushed aside by his more experienced uncle, said one senior

official. And look what happened to him.
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/choe_sanghun/index.htmlhttp://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/choe_sanghun/index.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/pages/world/asia/index.html


2/4



That uncle, Jang Song-thaek, 67, got on his nephews bad side over

business deals and power plays involving some in the elite, and was executed

last year, according to accounts pieced together by American and South

Korean officials at the time. That has spawned rumors that disaffected

members of the ruling party or military, eager to settle scores, are at it again,

but officials say there is far more speculation of such a plot than evidence.

But given the secretive nature of the North Korean government, and the

consequences of turmoil in a nuclear-armed and often belligerent country, the

official doubts about any power shifts have done little to stop speculation.

Some of the rumors are relatively benign, suggesting that the corpulent

Mr. Kim is simply recovering from that nemesis of many a leader with a soft

spot for rich food: gout. But others suggest that Mr. Kim, who is believed to be

about 30, has finally lost power to older North Korean power brokers more

schooled in the countrys treacherous politics, either through a planned revolt

or a more subtle takeover that would leave him as a figurehead.

In an indication of the breathless nature of the online rumor mill, one

story circulated on social media in China went so far as to name the engineer

of the purported coup, Vice Marshal Jo Myong-rok. The only catch: Mr. Jo

was reported to have died several years ago.

One reason for the proliferation of theories is that rumors in North Korea

have sometimes turned out to be true. These include news of the countrys

devastating famine in the 1990s as well as the more recent (and unpopular)

currency reform, which in both cases first surfaced in poorly sourced reports.

But there is also always the temptation to believe the worst of a family-

ruled country that has little exposure to the outside world and has displayed

its share of oddities, and cruelties. At least in earshot of their many minders,

regular North Koreans credit the Kims with godlike feats. And althoughexperts say Mr. Kim did not feed his uncle to dogs as one Chinese blog post

suggested, South Korean intelligence officials said some of the uncles

lieutenants were executed by machine gun.

In gauging what has happened to Mr. Kim, some analysts have noted that

his father and grandfather also disappeared for weeks on end.

Kim Jong-uns disappearing act over the past month, in the North

Korean context, is not an aberration, said Lee Sung-yoon, a North Koreaexpert at Tufts Universitys Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Such


3/4



vanishing acts would be most unusual in democracies, but in totalitarian

North Korea, Kim is the state. He is free to come and go as he pleases.

Mr. Kim, however, has never been gone from sight this long and, until

now, had been notably visible, visiting farms, factories and military units

more frequently than his reclusive father did.

The visits are always covered prominently in the Norths state-controlled

news media and include what passes for statecraft in North Korea; like his

father and grandfather, Mr. Kim is followed on the on-site guidance tours by

party functionaries and generals about twice his age who furiously scribble

down his thoughts on how to make improvements.

For now, foreign officials and analysts are anxiously waiting for Friday,

the anniversary of the founding of the ruling Workers Party, to see if Mr. Kim

will make a public appearance. Speaking at a parliamentary hearing this week,

Han Min-koo, the South Korean defense minister, said that his countrys

intelligence had determined that Mr. Kim was at a certain place north of

Pyongyang. Mr. Han gave no further details, citing the sensitivity of the

intelligence. His remark was widely taken as meaning that Mr. Kim was

recuperating at a family villa in Gangdong, north of the North Korean capital,

and that the government in Seoul did not believe that Mr. Kim had lost power

in a coup.North Korean diplomats in New York and Geneva have dismissed reports

about Mr. Kims absence as part of efforts by their countrys external enemies

to spread disinformation to undermine the Pyongyang government. One of

the three North Korean officials visiting the South last Saturday, the party

secretary Kim Yang-gon, told Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae of South

Korea that there was no problem at all with Kim Jong-uns health, according

to Mr. Ryoo.Other than Mr. Kims absence, there are few outward signs of trouble in

the North. The North Korean media is brimming, as usual, with propaganda

extolling his leadership. On Tuesday, the Norths main party newspaper,

Rodong Sinmun, intoned that the people and military of North Korea knew

no other leader than the marshal. Daily NK, a Seoul-based website that says

it uses anonymous sources within the North, reported North Korean citizens

watching the Asian Games on large screens in central Pyongyang in recentweeks while the media there attributed any victory by North Korean athletes


4/4



to the greatness of Mr. Kim.

Most analysts in South Korea conclude that Mr. Kim has been kept from

the cameras since Sept. 3 simply because he is suffering from some ailment.

With so much internal propaganda focused on Mr. Kim, John Delury, a

North Korea expert at Yonsei University in Seoul, said that if Mr. Kim had

surgery and was recuperating, the North would probably not want to release

images of him in a wheelchair. North Korea kept Mr. Kims father, Kim Jong-

il, out of public view for months after he suffered a stroke in 2008.

In any case, Mr. Delury said the speculation would not end until the

young Mr. Kim appeared in public.

At some point if Kim fails to appear in public, then we can assume there

is a serious problem, he said. The question is how long?

David E. Sanger contributed reporting from Washington.

A version of this article appears in print on October 9, 2014, on page A6 of the New York edition with

the headline: In Leaders Absence, Rumors of a Coup Fly in North Korea.

2014 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/content/help/rights/copyright/copyright-notice.html

in kim jong-un’s absence, rumors about him swirl in north korea - nytimes.com

Documents