Family affair: Kim Jong-un wipes his uncle from North Korea's history

[pampango]

The public purging of his uncle by marriage, once his protector, shows Kim is as ruthless as his father and grandfather



Dashing hopes that his youth and Swiss schooling might bring change, Kim Jong-un, the third-generation quasi-monarch of a regime still notionally communist, has just reminded us that 1984 is still North Korea's playbook, with the viciously public purging of Jang Song-thaek, his uncle-in-law and former protector.

As in any tyranny, purges are of course routine. But they are usually subtler. In July 2012, Ri Yong-ho, the vice-marshal who squared young Kim's succession with the Korean People's Army, was suddenly relieved of all his posts due to "illness". In 2010, another senior military figure, Kim Il-chol, was similarly retired owing to "his advanced age of 80". (The titular head of state, Kim Yong-nam, is 85; Choe Yong-rim, the previous premier, was 83.)

Jang's removal was extreme even by North Korean standards. Not since the 1970s has a senior figure been shown on TV being physically arrested in a party meeting, having just had the book thrown at him. The long and ludicrous charge-sheet covers all bases: from "anti-party … factional acts" and obstructing the economy to "dreaming different dreams", not to mention "a dissolute and depraved life … improper relations with several women" and even drug use.

Jang may now be dead; his wife's fate is unclear. The Orwellian rewrites have begun, too. On Saturday, Jang was edited out or obscured in 17 shots of a rerun TV news report from October which had shown him at Kim Jong-un's side. With the second anniversary of Kim Jong-il's funeral imminent, will they delete film and photographs of him as he walked beside the hearse behind Kim Jong-un?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/09/north-korea-kim-jong-un-uncle

It would seem that young Kim is getting to like this dictator job. An uncle that helped pave the way for Kim's assumption of power, "Sorry, Unc.!", but purges are part of a kind consolidating his rule.

[benld74]

1. I read an individual escaped from North Korea,

and that individual had/has evidence on the uncle's secret accounts. Hope he has alot more! And hope he is safe.