The Hidden People of North Korea by Ralph Hassig, Kongdan Oh
Authors: Ralph Hassig, Kongdan Oh
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when Kim meets world leaders, he has no trouble playing the role of chief of state. On meeting South Korean president Kim Dae-jung at the June 2000 summit, he was a gracious and expansive host, a performance he repeated when U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited Pyongyang that October. Kim seemed stiff or ill at ease during a formal meeting with President Putin in Moscow in 2001, but when Putin invited him several days later for a private visit, Kim was delighted and revealed his pleasant side.
Kim likes to portray himself as a great general, although he has never actually served in the military. From his father, he has inherited what Adrian Buzo aptly calls the guerrilla style of leadership, and the younger Kim has even amplified his military leadership in the form of the “military-first” politics that has become North Korea’s guiding policy and ideology. There are obvious political advantages to being a “wartime president” (as President George W. Bush proclaimed himself to be). The entire nation can legitimately be called upon to give the leader unquestioning support and to endure hardships for which the enemy can conveniently be blamed.
In public at least, Kim is supremely confident; indeed, arrogant would be a more accurate description. Even as a young man, he often treated senior officials like subordinates, speaking to them with his hands in his pockets or clasped behind his back (like his father), or smoking in front of them, or failing to greet them when he entered a room. His demeanor unnerved those around him. Koh Young-hwan, a former diplomat, said that when he was in Kim’s presence, he became so nervous he could hardly breathe. 67
Kim speaks rapidly in a rather high-pitched voice, usually in unfinished sentences, jumping from one topic to another. When he gets an idea, he wants it implemented immediately. For example, it is said that when his artistic eye rested on an empty Pyongyang vista, Kim would order that buildings be erected to fill the void. After his 2002 visit to eastern Russia, where he was impressed with the architecture of a Greek Orthodox church, he ordered that a similar church be built in Pyongyang within the year (it was finished in 2006), even though ordinary North Koreans who publicly worship anyone other than Kim and his father can expect to be sent to prison. Kim’s ideas are often impractical, such as his decision to build a 105-story hotel that remains unfinished a quarter of a century later because of structural flaws or his order to build thousands of small hydroelectric plants throughout the country (in the manner of China’s disastrous Great Leap Forward), few of which generate sufficient power to pay for themselves.
Kim has a hot temper, but he can quickly forget his anger. He sometimes sends close associates to reeducation labor camps for weeks or months at a time when they displease him, but after they have served their time, they are often allowed to resume their old positions. Then again, some are never released, perhaps because Kim has forgotten about them. When very angry, he can even go as far as to order that someone be put to death, as he has done on more than one occasion, the most famous case being the public execution of his agriculture minister in 1997.
It is Kim Jong-il’s tragedy that in nearly all respects he cuts a less impressive figure than his father. Physically, he is short and stout (although, since his stroke, he has lost much weight). At about 5 feet, 5 inches tall (165 centimeters), he is several inches shorter than his father. To add a few inches to his height, he combs his thinning hair in a bouffant style and wears elevator shoes (since his stroke, he has occasionally appeared in public wearing sneakers). His weight, which has been a problem since childhood, was about 175 pounds (80 kg) when he was healthy. He has squinty eyes and frequently wears large-framed, heavily tinted glasses, which the North Korean press explains is to
Kim likes to portray himself as a great general, although he has never actually served in the military. From his father, he has inherited what Adrian Buzo aptly calls the guerrilla style of leadership, and the younger Kim has even amplified his military leadership in the form of the “military-first” politics that has become North Korea’s guiding policy and ideology. There are obvious political advantages to being a “wartime president” (as President George W. Bush proclaimed himself to be). The entire nation can legitimately be called upon to give the leader unquestioning support and to endure hardships for which the enemy can conveniently be blamed.
In public at least, Kim is supremely confident; indeed, arrogant would be a more accurate description. Even as a young man, he often treated senior officials like subordinates, speaking to them with his hands in his pockets or clasped behind his back (like his father), or smoking in front of them, or failing to greet them when he entered a room. His demeanor unnerved those around him. Koh Young-hwan, a former diplomat, said that when he was in Kim’s presence, he became so nervous he could hardly breathe. 67
Kim speaks rapidly in a rather high-pitched voice, usually in unfinished sentences, jumping from one topic to another. When he gets an idea, he wants it implemented immediately. For example, it is said that when his artistic eye rested on an empty Pyongyang vista, Kim would order that buildings be erected to fill the void. After his 2002 visit to eastern Russia, where he was impressed with the architecture of a Greek Orthodox church, he ordered that a similar church be built in Pyongyang within the year (it was finished in 2006), even though ordinary North Koreans who publicly worship anyone other than Kim and his father can expect to be sent to prison. Kim’s ideas are often impractical, such as his decision to build a 105-story hotel that remains unfinished a quarter of a century later because of structural flaws or his order to build thousands of small hydroelectric plants throughout the country (in the manner of China’s disastrous Great Leap Forward), few of which generate sufficient power to pay for themselves.
Kim has a hot temper, but he can quickly forget his anger. He sometimes sends close associates to reeducation labor camps for weeks or months at a time when they displease him, but after they have served their time, they are often allowed to resume their old positions. Then again, some are never released, perhaps because Kim has forgotten about them. When very angry, he can even go as far as to order that someone be put to death, as he has done on more than one occasion, the most famous case being the public execution of his agriculture minister in 1997.
It is Kim Jong-il’s tragedy that in nearly all respects he cuts a less impressive figure than his father. Physically, he is short and stout (although, since his stroke, he has lost much weight). At about 5 feet, 5 inches tall (165 centimeters), he is several inches shorter than his father. To add a few inches to his height, he combs his thinning hair in a bouffant style and wears elevator shoes (since his stroke, he has occasionally appeared in public wearing sneakers). His weight, which has been a problem since childhood, was about 175 pounds (80 kg) when he was healthy. He has squinty eyes and frequently wears large-framed, heavily tinted glasses, which the North Korean press explains is to
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