North Korea Removes Its Army Chief |
Posted: July 16, 2012 |
In the first months of Kim Jong-un’s rule over North Korea, Vice Marshal Ri Yong-ho was one of the officials most often seen with him. They inspected military barracks and reviewed parades together. Photos often showed the young leader leaning in to listen to the general, and laughing. Just a week ago, Vice Marshal Ri was seen standing next to Mr. Kim at an important state ceremony. But on Monday, the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency startled Pyongyang watchers with the announcement that Vice Marshal Ri, chief of the general staff of the Korean People’s Army and until now widely seen as one of Mr. Kim’s most trusted mentors, had been removed from all posts because of “illness.” The Politburo of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea dismissed him in a rare meeting convened on Sunday.
Since Mr. Kim replaced his father, Kim Jong-il, at the top of North Korea’s opaque hierarchy after the elder Kim’s death in December, analysts have scanned nearly every scrap of information coming out of the country for clues to the new leader’s intentions. With Monday’s development, some analysts say, one thing at least is clear: Mr. Kim is wielding his family’s favorite tool of control — using and discarding the senior officials around him like pawns on a chess board. The inner workings of political power in North Korea are shrouded in mystery, with top officials often demoted, made to disappear, reinstated or killed in suspicious “traffic accidents” in North Korea, where few cars run. Ensuring such unpredictability in any general’s career was seen as a crucial method used by Kim Jong-il, and his father Kim Il-sung before him, to tame generals and party secretaries. “These guys live the life of a fly,” said Lee Byong-chul, an analyst at the Institute for Peace and Cooperation in Seoul. “This signals that Kim Jong-un’s consolidation of power is proceeding faster than expected.” The circumstances of Vice Marshal Ri’s fall may look highly unusual. Few analysts had suspected him of health problems. Rather, the 69-year-old vice marshal looked vigorous, compared with the other aging officials surrounding Mr. Kim. Besides, octogenarian party secretaries and generals with serious illness were often allowed to keep their jobs until they died. But the Kim dynasty has a long history of seemingly wanton political persecution. In late 2009, when its attempt to crack down on black market activities and arrest inflation by radically devaluing its currency backfired, aggravating a food crisis and triggering highly unusual outbursts of protest in the totalitarian state, the regime executed its top party financial official. The official, Pak Nam-gi, faced trumped-up charges of anti-revolutionary activities, according to intelligence officials in Seoul. North Korea also cited “health issues” when it fired a police chief and a vice prime minister last year. It cited a traffic accident when it announced the 2010 death of Ri Je-gang, a key party official said to be a rival of Jang Song-thaek, the uncle of Mr. Kim and another influential power broker. Vice Marshal Ri’s dismissal came as Mr. Kim has begun projecting himself as a leader self-confident enough to attempt significant departures from his father’s ruling style. Earlier this month, he was shown on state television clapping hands at such icons of American pop culture as Mickey Mouse and Rocky Balboa. He also appeared with a young woman widely believed to be his wife, which would mark the first time in many years for most ordinary North Koreans to see their first lady on television. Outside analysts and officials have closely watched how Mr. Kim would control of the People’s Army, a loyal guardian of his family’s dynastic power whose role grew even bigger under his father’s “military-first” policy. Until now, Vice Marshal Ri had been seen as a central figure in helping him consolidate his grip on the military. Vice Marshal Ri, once virtually unknown to outside observers of North Korea, rapidly ascended within the military and party hierarchy and gained political prominence when Kim Jong-il started grooming Mr. Kim, his third son, as his successor after a stroke in 2008, and reportedly designated Vice Marshal Ri, a career soldier, as a mentor. He was made chief of the military’s general staff in 2009. The next year, he was promoted to vice marshal and made vice chairman of the Central Military Commission at a party conference where Kim Jong-un joined the commission and was introduced as his father’s official successor. He also moved into the center of party power by becoming a member of the Presidium of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party.
Analysts, however, began noticing a subtle shift in Vice Marshal Ri’s fortunes in April, when Mr. Kim promoted Choe Ryong-hae, a party official with little military background, to vice marshal and director of the military’s General Political Bureau, which oversees the political life and allegiance of top generals. Mr. Choe is considered a trusted ally of Mr. Jang, Mr. Kim’s uncle, who was entrusted by Kim Jong-il to safeguard his son’s transition to power but whose personal ambition is cloaked in mystery. The post of the military’s top political officer had long been vacant under Mr. Kim’s father, and Mr. Choe’s appointment was seen as Mr. Kim’s attempt to reassert the party’s _ and by extension, his own _ control on the military, analysts said. “It is likely that Ri Yong-ho was sacked while resisting the party’s attempt to control the military,” said Cheong Seong-chang, an analyst at Sejong Institute. Vice Marshal Ri was one of the seven senior generals and party officials who joined Mr. Kim as he walked alongside the hearse during Kim Jong-il’s funeral in December. They were considered major figures who the Web site of the North’s main party newspaper once said “will lead the party and military during the Kim Jong-un era.” But another one of the seven, U Dong-chuk, once believed to head the secret police and spy agency, has disappeared from North Korean news reports since mid-March, prompting speculation about his fate. Although Mr. Kim officially stuck to his father’s “military-first” policy, the party’s growing control of the army and the fall of Vice Marshal Ri, a hard-liner, may soften North Korea’s external policy, said Mr. Lee, the analyst.
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