Kim Jong-eun’s Older Brother Thinks Succession Inappropriate
Kim Jong-nam
South Korean Yonhap news agency on Thursday introduced to the whole world the older brother of the new dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong-eun’s older brother, Kim Jong-nam, who offered an interview to the SKorean news agency at his hotel in Macao. On that occasion the older Kim brother expressed his doubts that his younger brother could have become such an expert in military art and the mechanism to rule a country that possesses nuclear weapons.
Kim Jong-nam expressed the opinion that his brother was being displayed as a “symbol” while the leaders of the army and the political clique make the important decisions. He said that in his opinion the elite in Pyongyang would continue into the footsteps of his father.
He lives in the Chinese enclave of Macao, a province that came under Chinese rule in 1999, when Portugal hand it over to Beijing. He is a secluded person, which sometimes offers South Korean or Japanese media interviews.
He lost his father’s favors in 2001, when he wanted to travel to Japan on a fake passport to visit Disneyland. Since then he was in disgrace and his rightful place as heir was taken by the Swiss-educated Kim Jong-eun.
Kim Jong-nam’s emphasis is on the hereditary succession, which he opposed on the grounds that it goes against Socialism. He says that his father himself was against succession, and thinks even the people in North Korea, especially the elite, have a hard time coping with it.
He said that not even “great” Mao Zedong left a successor in China after the rule that turned the huge neighboring country into a Communist regime.
The interview offered by the older son of Kim Jong-il comes at a time when the authorities in Pyongyang announced that the body of the deceased leader would be enshrined in the palace that houses the body of his father, Kim Il-sung, the founder of North Korea.
The authorities announced that statues would be erected and “towers of his immortality” will be built. The Workers’ party have already granted him the title of “eternal leader,” while his father is still revered as “eternal president.”
Since the death of the former dictator, the young Kim Jong-eun has been presented to the people of North Korea as the genius among geniuses, the charismatic leader who rides horses, maneuvers in tanks’ cockpits and does a lot of other things only a leader of his stature can do.
The state television presents the party leaders and the military chiefs pledging their undying devotion to him, and offering to become human shields to protect him. Even so, it is considered that somehow he is being controlled by the military generals and by members of his family.
Kim Jong-eun was presented to the public in 2010, as the former dictator took a trip to China, to the village where Kim Il-sung went to school. That was the first sign in the North Korean “mythology” that reminded the members of the Workers’ party that he and his son were descending from the “eternal president.”
The message was intended to mould their mind before a congress that was held during late summer of 2010, after a delay of a few weeks. Before the congress, little Kim was made general, which is a new sign that the military had accepted him, though it was also a sign that he would be under the ambit of the military leaders, which have a very important saying in the power structure of the secluded republic.
The congress where Kim Jong-eun was to be presented as the heir apparent was delayed because of weather conditions, the officials said, or because the leaders of the party were not convinced to accept him.
The South Korean media speculated back then that the president was ill, and that he feared an imminent demise. The Chinese rulers also made sure that the situation would remain stable after the dictator was no more.
Last year, the North Korean dictator made a few steps in the direction of opening the country to discussing some of the most important issues for the Korean Peninsula: the unification with the South and the denuclearization of the peninsula.
He allowed the visits of the people who had families in both countries to temporarily reunite, and invited the Americans to participate in a revived six-party talks format over the nuclear arsenal of the Communist country.
He demanded that the Americans focus on a peace treaty with the North Korea, so that the belligerence between the two states, going on since the war in the 1950s, be replaced by normal relations.
North Korean officials met with the American envoy in two round of negotiations, which were promising for the security of the region.
All the way, Kim Jong-il attempted to tackle another problem of his country: the complete collapse of the economy, which brought many of the people in NKorea to face hunger.
Kim Jong-il met with the Russian president in 2011 in Siberia and promised him to allow the building of a pipeline on North Korean territory. The pipeline is intended to go to South Korea, which is a huge consumer of energy.
Kim allowed the pipeline in exchange for grains, which the Russians delivered in two rounds. Now it would seem that the new regime is ready to trade nuclear programs for food.
A very important aspect many were enthusiastic about when Kim died was the reunification. Many South Koreans hoped that the North would not receive the new generation of Kims and would proclaim reunification.
Others believe that Kim Jong-eun may pave the way toward reunification, by making the economy work, thus reducing the impact of the reunification for the economies of the two countries.
