KCIA: Jang Song Thaek Ousted

[Skywatcher]

Well, I'm assuming that South Korean intelligence officials would be the KCIA.

Reports: Kim Jong Un’s Uncle Ousted From Leadership Role
By Emily Rauhala / Beijing Dec. 03, 2013

Read more: Reports: Kim Jong Un’s Uncle Ousted From Leadership Role | TIME.com Reports: Kim Jong Un


The uncle of North Korea’s young dictator, Kim Jong Un, has reportedly been ousted. In a briefing to South Korean lawmakers on Tuesday, intelligence officials in Seoul said Jang Song Thaek was removed from his post as chairman of his country’s National Defence Commission, and that several of his associates were executed. The news, if confirmed, would be the biggest leadership shakeup in Pyongyang since Kim Jong Un came to power.

Jang, 67, has long been considered among the most influential figures in North Korean politics. He is a Kim family insider who was a close adviser to Kim Jong Un’s late father, Kim Jong Il. When Kim Jong Un took the helm, many saw Jang as the regent, a puppet-master pulling the strings. He is considered a reformer by North Korean standards and played a role in opening the country’s economy. After the death of Kim senior, Jang made a high-profile visit to China without the heir.

(MORE: Uncensored Instagrams From North Korea: A Rare Glimpse Into the World’s Most Secretive Country)

What might Jang’s apparent removal mean for North Korea? It may be weeks or months before we know, experts say. Information is scarce and the North Korean leadership tends not to announce this type of purge, says Brian Bridges, a Korea scholar at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. North Korea watchers usually find out about ousters after that fact, he says, noticing, say, that a certain figure failed to appear at an event, or has been quietly been replaced.

And, cautions John Delury, an assistant professor of political science at Seoul Yonsei University, even the most astute observers of North Korea have been wrong before. “There are a lot of stories, and there have been a lot of stories that have not panned out,” he said. “At this point, there are still a lot of question marks.”

If South Korean intelligence is right about Jang, his downfall may reflect Kim’s rising confidence, Bridges says. “If it’s true, I think it probably means that Kim Jong Un is in control of what’s going on,” he said. “That he doesn’t need his uncle under his arm in the way that he did when he came back to power two years ago.”

Read more: Reports: Kim Jong Un’s Uncle Ousted From Leadership Role | TIME.com Reports: Kim Jong Un

Reports: Kim Jong Un

If true, this begs the question of, who will replace him as the power behind Un?

[Doktor]

IIRC, the Col and DE discussed this some time ago, as a possible beginning of the end of the lil Kim's rule.

[Skywatcher]

IIRC, the Col and DE discussed this some time ago, as a possible beginning of the end of the lil Kim's rule.

In that case, the commanders of the PLA's 38th and 39th Group Armies are probably hoping that lil Kim will at least stay on until the summer.

[citanon]

You're discounting Lil Kim too soon. This is a page out of the traditional Asian dynasty succession story, which is what this is. Take over power, knock off dad's old advisors and your tutors and guardians including your own relatives. Only then is your power secure.

Li Kim is doing this rather quickly, but its not a sure indication that hes losing grip. Could be the opposite. Real danger for him here is that he could be over confident and over extend himself.

[Skywatcher]

You're discounting Lil Kim too soon. This is a page out of the traditional Asian dynasty succession story, which is what this is. Take over power, knock off dad's old advisors and your tutors and guardians including your own relatives. Only then is your power secure.

Li Kim is doing this rather quickly, but its not a sure indication that hes losing grip. Could be the opposite. Real danger for him here is that he could be over confident and over extend himself.

Knocking off his father's circle, especially when they're close relatives, is a bit risky to take at his age (he's not even 30 IIRC).

[Parihaka]

Who is Jang Song Thaek and what does his supposed sacking mean for North Korea?

To South Koreans, he’s known as a member of an 18-strong ‘economic study group’ from the North that landed in Seoul in 2002 and stayed nine days during the ‘sunshine policy’ years of inter-Korean engagement.

No low-level officials these, but at least three heavyweights. The nominal leader of the group was Pak Nam Gi, then chair of the State Planning Commission, he’s generally reckoned to have been publicly executed as the scapegoat for a disastrous currency redenomination in late 2009.

The hosts warmed more to another Pak, however. Then minister for chemicals, Pak Pong Ju was visibly excited as they toured Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motor, Posco and the rest. He’s now on his second stint as premier and tasked with running the peaceful half of Kim Jong Un’s guns and butter policy, or Byungjin – meaning nukes plus economic growth.

But in 2002 neither Pak was The Man. The real boss was Jang Song Thaek, whose anodyne title as a Party “first vice department director” belied his position as Kim Jong Il’s brother-in-law and right hand man. Jang gave nothing away in Seoul, but his colleagues’ body language did: if they met him in the corridor, they froze in terror in their tracks and tried to melt into the wall. When one morning he overslept, no North Korean dared wake him; the hotel had to.

Vanishing from mid-2003 till early 2006, probably for getting too powerful, in recent years Jang and his wife Kim Kyong Hui have been everywhere: on the Politburo, and even rather ludicrously given KPA generals’ stars. In this family regime, Jang was visibly the key figure in helping Kim Jong Il get his unknown, untried number three son installed as successor.

Decades earlier he’d also helped his brother-in-law cement his own succession, then far from certain. That needed slush cash, outside the state budget. Allegedly it was Jang’s idea to have North Korean diplomats raise money by smuggling, trafficking and so on: a startling abuse which for 37 years has been yet another North Korean menace. Or so claims Helen-Louise Hunter, who should know: She used to introduce herself as “the Kim Il Sung fan in the CIA”.

Hardly a neutral source? That’s just as true of the new shock claims that last month Jang was purged as vice-chair of the National Defence Commission: the highest executive body, outranking the Cabinet. Two of his closest cronies, Party officials Ri Yong Ha and Jang Soo Kil, are said to have been publicly executed for corruption and going against the Party.

Says who? Not Pyongyang, but the spooks in Seoul, where the National Intelligence Service plays a mean poker game. Itself accused of covertly posting over a million anti-opposition messages online in last year’s South Korean presidential election campaign, the NIS is brilliant at changing the subject. With the election scandal getting ever closer to the Blue House, what better way to fight back than deflect attention to much murkier goings-on up North?

Yet the fact that this is blatantly a ploy doesn’t mean it’s false. Naming the dead suggests confidence, and it’s certainly true that Jang had appeared less of late: just once in October and not at all since Nov. 6. His wife Kim was last seen in mid-September, but then she has had absences before, linked to health issues; the NIS says it has no word on her fate.

A second test is that time will tell. As with Pak Nam Gi, if months pass with no sign of Jang and his missus, we can put 0 + 0 together. The same goes for other recent nasty rumors of public executions, such as of members of the once-feted Unhasu and Wangjaesan music ensembles: last seen in August and July respectively. Did they really make porn videos? Were they secret Christians? (Surely not both.) We don’t know, but we do know they have vanished from view.

True, Jang disappeared before but then bounced back. Not this time, surely. If indeed he has lost power, which (to repeat) is by no means sure yet, then the meaning is clear. Kim Jong Il needed him to help effect two successions: his own and his son’s. Kim Jong Un needed him too, at first; but not anymore. Clearly his own man, the confident Young Marshal reckons he can now manage without uncle Jang as a guide at his side or peering over his shoulder.

Is Kim’s self-belief justified? You have to wonder. I doubt if Jang was a reformer, but he was for sure a fixer who knew his own system inside out. An emissary too. In August 2012 he led North Korea’s first major policy delegation to China under Kim Jong Un, who has yet to be invited to Beijing himself. If he is gone, China may soon know – and will surely miss him.

Maybe we’ll all miss him. North Korea was bad enough before, but there used to be method in the madness. You knew where you were with the likes of Jang, though you’d rather not be there. Whereas Kim Jong Un’s extreme saber-rattling this spring was the more alarming for having no clear cause or purpose. Why did he do it? North Korea gained nothing, but sorely taxed Beijing’s and everyone’s patience. Perhaps Jang was unwise enough to tell his nephew that. Without him, the fear is that North Korea may become even more unpredictable.

Aidan Foster-Carter is honorary senior research fellow in Sociology and Modern Korea at Leeds University, UK, and a freelance writer, consultant and broadcaster on both Koreas. He has followed Pyongyang politics for 45 years.

[citanon]

Knocking off his father's circle, especially when they're close relatives, is a bit risky to take at his age (he's not even 30 IIRC).

Risky but not impossible and certainly not unprecedented.

[winton]

Risky but not impossible and certainly not unprecedented.

and certainly not unwarranted. Jang had too much power for anyones liking.

[xinhui]

I saw it coming miles away.

China Stages Drills Near Korean Peninsula
The Chosun Ilbo (English Edition): Daily News from Korea - China Stages Drills Near Korean Peninsula

The exercises also came amid reports of the ouster of North Korean eminence grise Jang Song-taek.

The Shenyang Military Region, one of seven military regions in the Chinese People's Liberation Army that would be mobilized in an emergency on the Korean Peninsula, last Wednesday began cold-weather exercises in and around Mt. Baekdu, which marks the border with North Korea, the official Chinese military paper said Saturday.

Choe and Pak in Media Limelight- Daily NK

39th Army Moves to Border Region Daily NK
Around three thousand personnel affiliated with the Shenyang Military Region moved to the Mt. Baekdu area in the early hours of the 4th, the Chinese military ...

[citanon]

Was Jang Beijing's man in Pyonyang?

[citanon]

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjQ2MTA0MDc2.html

North Korea Leadership Watch | Research and Analysis on the DPRK Leadership

Translation of the litany of charges against Jang.

Our party members, service personnel and all other people have made energetic efforts to implement the behests of leader Kim Jong Il (Kim Cho’ng-il), entrusting their destiny entirely to Kim Jong Un and getting united close around the Central Committee of the WPK since the demise of Kim Jong Il, the greatest loss to the nation.

In this historic period for carrying forward the revolutionary cause of Chuch’e the chance elements and alien elements who had made their ways into the party committed such anti-party, counter-revolutionary factional acts as expanding their forces through factional moves and daring challenge the party, while attempting to undermine the unitary leadership of the party.

In this connection, the Political Bureau of the C.C., the WPK convened its enlarged meeting and discussed the issue related to the anti-party, counter-revolutionary factional acts committed by Jang Song Thaek.

The meeting, to begin with, fully laid bare the anti-party, counter-revolutionary factional acts of Jang Song Thaek and their harmfulness and reactionary nature.

It is the immutable truth proved by the nearly 70-year-long history of the WPK that the party can preserve its revolutionary nature as the party of the leader and fulfill its historic mission only when it firmly ensures its unity and cohesion based on the monolithic idea and the unitary center of leadership.

The entire party, whole army and all people are dynamically advancing toward the final victory in the drive for the building of a thriving nation, meeting all challenges of history and resolutely foiling the desperate moves of the enemies of the revolution under the leadership of Kim Jong Un. Such situation urgently calls for consolidating as firm as a rock the single-minded unity of the party and the revolutionary ranks with Kim Jong Un as its unitary centre and more thoroughly establishing the monolithic leadership system of the party throughout the party and society.

The Jang Song Thaek group, however, committed such anti-party, counter-revolutionary factional acts as gnawing at the unity and cohesion of the party and disturbing the work for establishing the party unitary leadership system and perpetrated such ant-state, unpopular crimes as doing enormous harm to the efforts to build a thriving nation and improve the standard of people’s living.

Jang pretended to uphold the party and leader but was engrossed in such factional acts as dreaming different dreams and involving himself in double-dealing behind the scene.

Though he held responsible posts of the party and state thanks to the deep political trust of the party and leader, he committed such perfidious acts as shunning and obstructing in every way the work for holding President Kim Il Sung (Kim Il-so’ng) and Kim Jong Il in high esteem for all ages, behaving against the elementary sense of moral obligation and conscience as a human being.

Jang desperately worked to form a faction within the party by creating illusion about him and winning those weak in faith and flatterers to his side.

Prompted by his politically-motivated ambition, he tried to increase his force and build his base for realizing it by implanting those who had been punished for their serious wrongs in the past period into ranks of officials of departments of the party central committee and units under them.

Jang and his followers did not sincerely accept the line and policies of the party, the organizational will of the WPK, but deliberately neglected their implementation, distorted them and openly played down the policies of the party. In the end, they made no scruple of perpetrating such counter-revolutionary acts as disobeying the order issued by the supreme commander of the Korean People’s Army.

The Jang group weakened the party’s guidance over judicial, prosecution and people’s security bodies, bringing very harmful consequences to the work for protecting the social system, policies and people.

Such acts are nothing but counter-revolutionary, unpopular criminal acts of giving up the class struggle and paralyzing the function of popular democratic dictatorship, yielding to the offensive of the hostile forces to stifle the DPRK.

Jang seriously obstructed the nation’s economic affairs and the improvement of the standard of people’s living in violation of the pivot-to-the-Cabinet principle and the Cabinet responsibility principle laid down by the WPK.

The Jang group put under its control the fields and units which play an important role in the nation’s economic development and the improvement of people’s living in a crafty manner, making it impossible for the economic guidance organs including the Cabinet to perform their roles.

By throwing the state financial management system into confusion and committing such act of treachery as selling off precious resources of the country at cheap prices, the group made it impossible to carry out the behests of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il on developing the industries of Chuch’e iron, Chuch’e fertilizer and Chuch’e vinalon.

Affected by the capitalist way of living, Jang committed irregularities and corruption and led a dissolute and depraved life.

By abusing his power, he was engrossed in irregularities and corruption, had improper relations with several women and was wined and dined at back parlors of deluxe restaurants.

Ideologically sick and extremely idle and easy-going, he used drugs and squandered foreign currency at casinos while he was receiving medical treatment in a foreign country under the care of the party.

Jang and his followers committed criminal acts baffling imagination and they did tremendous harm to our party and revolution.

The ungrateful criminal acts perpetrated by the group of Jang Song Thaek are lashing our party members, service personnel of the People’s Army and people into great fury as it committed such crimes before they observed two-year mourning for Kim Jong Il, eternal general secretary of the WPK.

Speeches were made at the enlarged meeting.

Speakers bitterly criticized in unison the anti-party, counter-revolutionary factional acts committed by the Jang group and expressed their firm resolution to remain true to the idea and leadership of Kim Jong Un and devotedly defend the Party Central Committee politically and ideologically and with lives.

The meeting adopted a decision of the Political Bureau of the Party Central Committee on relieving Jang of all posts, depriving him of all titles and expelling him and removing his name from the WPK.

The party served warning to Jang several times and dealt blows at him, watching his group’s anti-party, counter-revolutionary factional acts as it has been aware of them from long ago. But it did not pay heed to it but went beyond tolerance limit. That was why the party eliminated Jang and purged his group, unable to remain an onlooker to its acts any longer, dealing telling blows at sectarian acts manifested within the party.

Our party will never pardon anyone challenging its leadership and infringing upon the interests of the state and people in violation of the principle of the revolution, regardless of his or her position and merits.

No matter how mischievously a tiny handful of anti-party, counter-revolutionary factional elements may work, they can never shake the revolutionary faith of all party members, service personnel and people holding Kim Jong Un in high esteem as the unitary centre of unity and unitary centre of leadership.

The discovery and purge of the Jang group, a modern day faction and undesirable elements who happened to worm their ways into our party ranks, made our party and revolutionary ranks purer and helped consolidate our single-minded unity remarkably and advance more dynamically the revolutionary cause of Chuch’e along the road of victory.

No force on earth can deter our party, army and people from dynamically advancing toward a final victory, single-mindedly united around Kim Jong Un under the uplifted banner of great Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism.

[xinhui]

Was Jang Beijing's man in Pyonyang?

They are All Beijing's men and none is.

[xinhui]

Elements of Arty Regt, 116th Mech Inf Div, 39th GA, confirmed.

I saw it coming miles away.

China Stages Drills Near Korean Peninsula
The Chosun Ilbo (English Edition): Daily News from Korea - China Stages Drills Near Korean Peninsula

The exercises also came amid reports of the ouster of North Korean eminence grise Jang Song-taek.

The Shenyang Military Region, one of seven military regions in the Chinese People's Liberation Army that would be mobilized in an emergency on the Korean Peninsula, last Wednesday began cold-weather exercises in and around Mt. Baekdu, which marks the border with North Korea, the official Chinese military paper said Saturday.

Choe and Pak in Media Limelight- Daily NK

39th Army Moves to Border Region Daily NK
Around three thousand personnel affiliated with the Shenyang Military Region moved to the Mt. Baekdu area in the early hours of the 4th, the Chinese military ...

[SouthKorean]

Well, I'm assuming that South Korean intelligence officials would be the KCIA.



If true, this begs the question of, who will replace him as the power behind Un?

The KCIA has been renamed as the NIS (National Intelligence Service) a few years if not decades ago, to re-brand its image as a tool of government corruption, repression, and control (an image which sadly still rings true today).
As for the topic itself, Jang, being the uncle of Kim-Jong-Un, was the No.2 man in NK. Although he has suffered two purges and still climbed up the political ladder, this one was the most thorough and damaging to the point of completely destroying Jang. Two of his associates have been publicly executed, and his charges are diverse and many.
Jang was the voice of moderation in NK, and his purge is seen by many as part of the increasing solidification of power by Kim-Jong-Un. The chances of NK abandoning its nukes, while having been always slim, is now even more slim. Due to this, the on-going purge in North Korea is seen as having negative effects on North-South relations. Although many observers entertained hopes for Kim-Jong-Un as having been foreign-educated, hopes petered out fast. Although he has mildly liberalized the economy, especially the agricultural sector, his politics still seems to be the autocracy of his father and grandfather.

[Officer of Engineers]

Kim is a freaking butcher but without the finesse of his father and grandfather. The stupid thing is that he may actually believe in his own superiority and can do no wrong. He just might repeat his grandfather's mistake of starting a war he can't win.