Kim Jong-un’s decision to take out his half-brother Kim Jong-nam, with the assassins using an internationally banned chemical agent to do it, is not the usual mode of operation for North Korea’s first family. While the Kims of Pyongyang have not hesitated to purge hundreds by some of the most draconian methods possible, they’ve been more reluctant to slay those who share the “sacred” baekdu bloodline that descends from the dynasty’s sire, Kim Il-sung. Both Kim Jong-un’s father and grandfather also had difficulties with troublesome brothers. They chose, however, to sideline or exile these recalcitrant siblings rather than murder them gangland style. The fact that Kim Jong-un was willing to risk even further international condemnation and isolation by eliminating his already-marginalized playboy half-brother suggests that his hold on power in Pyongyang might not be as airtight as many outsiders assume.
The founding father of North Korea, Kim Il-sung, faced his own sibling rivalry. Kim Yong-ju, who is assumed still alive at the advanced age of 96, was a rising star in his elder brother’s court, holding key positions in the Korean Workers’ party in the 1960s and early 1970s. He was even once thought to be his brother’s likely successor. Kim Il-sung passed him over as heir apparent, however, in favor of his son Kim Jong-il. The Russian-educated Kim Yong-ju had reportedly opposed the personality cult developing around his older brother, while Kim Jong-il enthusiastically promoted it. In 1975, Yong-ju was sent into internal exile, placed under house arrest in remote Jagang Province and not heard of again for almost two decades. He was brought back to Pyongyang by Kim Il-sung in 1993, the year before the dictator’s death. Still, being purged and internally exiled was far preferable to Kim Jong-nam’s fate of having poison rubbed in his face. Yong-ju continues to hold the position of honorary vice president of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly.
The founder’s son, Kim Jong-il, chose a different tactic when problems developed with his younger half-brother, Kim Pyong-il. Like the current leader and his murdered half-brother, these siblings shared the same father but had different mothers. And like his deceased nephew, Kim Pyong-il was known as a partier and womanizer in his youth. Pyong-il, though, still managed to gather his own power center of Pyongyang allies around him. He was thus seen as a potential threat to his half-brother’s ascendancy as heir apparent. In 1979, Pyong-il was sent into external exile with a diplomatic posting to Eastern Europe. He became the man who never returned. After serving at the North Korean embassy in the former Yugoslavia, he was named ambassador to Hungary. This was followed by ambassadorships to Bulgaria, Finland, Poland, and, currently, the Czech Republic. Kim Pyong-il did apparently briefly visit Pyongyang in 1994 to attend his father Kim Il-sung’s funeral (although North Korean television reportedly deleted his image) and in 2011 to see his dying mother. However, South Korean officials noted that he was noticeably absent from his brother Kim Jong-il’s funeral in December 2011. This was the occasion where his nephew Kim Jong-un stepped into the spotlight as the new ruler of North Korea. Staying away was probably a prudent decision. Kim Pyong-il—unlike his chatty nephew, the ill-fated Kim Jong-nam—has also shied away from giving press interviews commenting on political developments in his homeland. Silence is golden in North Korea and has likely kept Kim Pyong-il alive.
The bloody murder of talkative or ambitious in-laws, on the other hand, has long been standard operating procedure for the North Korean regime. In February 1997, for example, defector Yi Han-yong, Kim Jong-nam’s cousin on his mother’s side, was gunned down on the streets in the metropolitan Seoul area by suspected North Korean agents. Yi at first tried to conceal his identity after arriving in South Korea, even reportedly undergoing plastic surgery. But after running into financial difficulties with a failed business, Yi decided to earn some money by writing a tell-all book on the inner workings of the Kim family, titled Taedong River Royal Family. A fatal mistake. Yi was shot, coming out of his apartment, with a Belgian-made Browning pistol, in a society with strict gun control, by two assailants who successfully made their escape. As he lay bleeding on the street, Yi reportedly cried out “Bbalgangyi!” (“Reds!”), leaving little doubt who had assassinated him.
Yi’s book was especially embarrassing because it spelled out the puritanical hypocrisy of North Korean-style Marxism. Yi’s mother, who also defected, in Switzerland, was the older sister of prominent actress Song Hye-rim, Kim Jong-il’s mistress and the mother of the recently murdered Kim Jong-nam. The Dear Leader, an avid moviemaker, reportedly encountered the lovely Song Hye-rim on a film lot and quickly forced her to divorce and then exiled her former husband. But Kim Jong-il did not dare tell his father, Kim Il-sung, of his affair, as his father had already arranged a marriage for him with the handpicked daughter of a Korean War revolutionary martyr. Kim Il-sung, who reputedly had a number of mistresses himself, did not approve of the liaison, and Kim Jong-il kept the 1971 birth of his son Kim Jong-nam by his mistress a secret from his father for years. The hapless Kim Jong-nam was raised with his mother’s family, including the cousin who would later be gunned down, in an isolated villa in North Korea. His paternal uncle by marriage, Jang Song-thaek, who would also be purged and then executed by Kim Jong-un, took Kim Jong-nam under his wing, per Korean family custom, as he had no male heir of his own.
When Kim Jong-un killed Jang Song-thaek, also his uncle, in 2013, he spared the life of Jang’s wife, Kim Kyung-hui. Rumored to have suffered a stroke after her husband’s execution, Kim Kyung-hui is thought to be alive but in declining health in a nursing care facility. As a daughter of Kim Il-sung, she is a member of the baekdu bloodline. The decision not to execute his aunt with her husband seemed linked to the enshrinement of the purity of the Kim dynasty in the baekdu bloodline.
In 2013, the bloodline of the now-three-generation Kim dynasty was codified in North Korean law with the publication of Clause 2 of Article 10 of the Ten Fundamental Principles of the Korean Workers’ party, which states that the party and revolution must be carried “eternally” by the “baekdu bloodline.” By ordering the murder of his blood half-brother Kim Jong-nam, a member of this same bloodline, Kim Jong-un has crossed a red line that neither his father nor grandfather chose to breach in their own complex dealings with troublesome siblings. Spilling baekdu blood indicates that Kim Jong-un felt seriously threatened by his brother as a potential alternative power center, even though Kim Jong-nam was exiled and politically marginalized.
The purge of state security minister Kim Won-hong in mid-January on charges of corruption and “human rights abuses” also signals that Kim Jong-un’s grip on power may not be as secure as previously assumed. Kim Won-hong had carried out a “reign of terror” for his boss, with more than 100 government and military officials killed, according to the Guardian. Seoul’s Yonhap News Agency reported on February 27 that five senior security officials connected to Kim Won-hong were executed with anti-aircraft guns. The five had reportedly “enraged” Kim Jong-un by filing false reports, which were also behind Kim Won-hong’s sacking.
Kim Jong-un has demonstrated that he will stop at nothing, even killing his uncle and brother, to retain power. The dictator has a daughter but no male heirs, and the late Kim Jong-nam’s 21-year-old son, Kim Han-sol, is a fourth-generation descendant of the baekdu bloodline. Kim Han-sol has criticized North Korean rule and is said to have given up his place at Oxford after his father’s death amid fears he could be next. In a March 7 video, he revealed, in English, that he’s in hiding with his mother and sister. A statement released with the video by the group aiding the family thanked the governments of the United States, China, the Netherlands, and a fourth country “to remain unnamed”—as well as the Dutch ambassador to Korea by name—for their help. The rescue operation sounds very James Bond, and one hopes Kim Han-sol is indeed safely ensconced somewhere. That may be the only way he avoids being struck down by his murderous uncle Kim Jong-un and joining the nephews of Richard III, the famed Princes in the Tower, in legend. ¨
Dennis P. Halpin, a former adviser on Asian issues to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is a visiting scholar at the U.S.-Korea Institute (SAIS) and an adviser to the Poblete Analysis Group.
