[dehai-news] (IHT) Succession plan uncertain in North Korea after leader's reported stroke


New Message Reply About this list Date view Thread view Subject view Author view

From: Yemane Natnael (yemane_natnael@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Sep 10 2008 - 10:44:27 EDT


                                        
                                        Succession plan uncertain in North Korea after leader's reported strokeSeptember 10, 2008
                                                        
By Choe Sang-Hun

SEOUL:
U.S. and South Korean intelligence reports that the North Korean
leader, Kim Jong Il, recently suffered a stroke raise issues that the
North's neighbors have long feared.
 If Kim is incapacitated or dies,
who will take over one of the world's most isolated and unpredictable
regimes, now armed with nuclear weapons? And what will happen to a
nation that has long looked on Kim as a godlike figure?
 
South Korean lawmakers told reporters on Wednesday after a briefing
by the National Intelligence Service that Kim suffered a cerebral
hemorrhage in mid-August and underwent surgery, but has recovered
enough to speak and walk.
 
Kim Sung Ho, the South's spy chief, told the National Assembly's
Intelligence Committee that this was not the first time that Kim had
been operated on for a circulation problem. There was no sign of unrest
in the North, the lawmakers were told.
 
A spokeswoman for the National Intelligence Service said in an
interview later Wednesday, "We have intelligence reports that after
intensive treatments, his condition has considerably improved." She
spoke on condition of anonymity, in keeping with agency policy.
 
In Pyongyang on Wednesday, the Japanese news agency Kyodo quoted
North Korea's No. 2 leader, Kim Yong Nam, as saying that there was "no
problem" with Kim Jong Il.

"We see such reports as not only worthless, but rather as a
conspiracy plot," another senior North Korean official, Song Il Ho,
told Kyodo.
 
Kim, 66, was conspicuously absent from a parade on Tuesday to mark the North's 60th anniversary.
 
American officials said on Tuesday that Kim was seriously ill and
was believed to have suffered a stroke weeks ago. Although both U.S.
and South Korean officials said it did not appear that Kim's death was
imminent, the episode prompted analysts to consider the prospects of a
chaotic power struggle in the Communist dynasty should Kim not be able
to resume his firm grip on power.
 
"If the report about a stroke is true, we can now say a power
struggle has already begun in Pyongyang," said Lee Byong Chul, senior
fellow at the Institute for Peace and Cooperation, a nonpartisan policy
advisory body based in Seoul. Kim's demise could "recreate the scenes
of the ancient Korean palace."
 
Like many ancient Korean kings, Kim has not groomed a strong
heir-apparent, Lee said, and factions in Pyongyang supporting different
sons of Kim or dreaming of their own power could "spill blood."
 
Kim took power after his father, North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung,
died of heart failure in 1994. Long before that, he had been groomed as
a successor and was running key state affairs.
 
In contrast, none of his three known sons has emerged as an obvious
candidate to take the dynasty into a third generation. If Kim had
intended to choose one but now finds his time running out, analysts
said Wednesday that the most likely scenario would be power elites in
Pyongyang forming a collective leadership.
 
"The majority view now is that it will be a collective leadership,
with some member of the Kim family as a figurehead," said Andrei
Lankov, a North Korea expert at Kookmin University in Seoul. "But
situations can easily go in an unpredictable direction. Many top
generals and some civilian leaders will probably be overcome by their
own power lust, so serious infighting with unpredictable results is
also likely."
 
Peter Hayes, director of the Nautilus Institute, a think tank in San
Francisco, predicted that "a leader from the current political elite
with strong ties to the military" would take over.
 
Such a leader might continue a slow modernizing process while
maintaining continuity with North Korea's mythic past, based on
nationalism and the personality cult centered on the revered Kim Il
Sung, Hayes said. The new leader would also adhere to the North's
current nuclear strategy, he said.
 
A power vacuum could trigger intense diplomatic maneuverings.
 
Washington, whose priority is to shut the North's nuclear weapons
program, will do what it can to block the rise of a hard-line military
leader, analysts said.
 
China, for its part, wants to preserve North Korea as a buffer against U.S. and Japanese influence.
 
Meanwhile, South Korea dreads the possibility of a sudden collapse
of North Korea, and the political instability, large influx of refugees
and economic havoc that could ensue. It also fears that unrest might
prompt Chinese military intervention in the North.
 
On Wednesday, President Lee Myung Bak of South Korea called a
hurried meeting with senior aides to discuss the latest events in
the North.
 
The inner workings of Kim's regime are shrouded in mystery, even for
experts who have spent a lifetime watching North Korea from the
outside. They pore over the footage of rare public events, such as the
parade on Tuesday, for clues as to who is in or out of power.

They said that, even if Kim died, it could take days for the news to trickle out.
 
Despite endless rumors about his leadership, Kim has maintained a
ruthless grip on power, his control such that even his closest aides do
not know what the others are up to, South Korean intelligence
officials say.
 
Cheong Seong Chang, an analyst at the Sejong Institute, said that
Kim may have been eyeing 2012 - the 100th anniversary of his late
father's birth and his own 70th birthday - as the year by which he
hoped to stabilize the North's economy so that he could effect a smooth
transfer of power to a son.
 
"If Kim still sits on his throne after four to five years, we are
likely to see an era of joint rule by Kim Jong Il" and one of his sons,
most likely the second one, Kim Jong Chol, Cheong said.
 
"If Kim dies a natural death within four to five years, the most
probable type of the North Korean regime would be a collective ruling
system, for no one has the absolute power and charisma like Kim." If
Kim is alive but incapacitated, the outside world might not see him for
a long time, said Leonid Petrov, a North Korea expert at the Australian
National University. Then "the group of generals will come out and tell
us that the Dear Leader has authorized us to do this and that, and then
they will run the country on his behalf until he is really dead."
 
Aging and ailing confidants of Kim like Kim Yong Nam and Jo Myong
Rok may step in. But the deciding voices in any power coalition might
be those of younger technocrats like Ri Yong Chol and Ri Je Gang, who
run military and organizational affairs at the ruling Workers Party,
analysts said. Chang Song Taek, Kim's brother-in-law, is also
considered a contender for power. The eldest son, Kim Jong Nam, 37,
might be the natural choice in a Confucian society that favors the
first-born son as heir. But he has a handicap: His mother, a divorced
actress, never legally married Kim. She died in Moscow in 2002. In
2001, Kim Jong Nam embarrassed his father when he was caught trying to
enter Japan on a fake Dominican passport.
 
Kim Jong Nam has since been sighted a few times by Japanese
reporters in Beijing. That raised speculation that he might be on the
run from a half-brother, Kim Jong Chol, 27, and his mother, Ko
Young Hee.
 
Ko, a star of Pyongyang's premier song-and-dance troupe, gave Kim
another son, Kim Jong Un, 25. Ko raised her status, and the fortune of
her sons, by accompanying Kim on his "guidance tours" of the military,
the loyal backbone of his rule. But she reportedly died in 2004, and
neither of her two sons has been seen in North Korean media.
 
A daughter, Kim Sul Song, is not considered a contender. "My guess
is like this: They will keep the Kim family as a social and political
institution like the emperor system in Japan, offering symbolic and
moral power for North Koreans, but are likely to establish a collective
leadership system in which the military will play a key role," said
Shin Gi Wook, director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific
Research Center at Stanford University. "We may, then, witness some
political instability in the North," Shin added.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/10/asia/north.php?page=2

         ----[This List to be used for Eritrea Related News Only]----


New Message Reply About this list Date view Thread view Subject view Author view

webmaster
© Copyright DEHAI-Eritrea OnLine, 1993-2008
All rights reserved