Dear Leader,
You’re a puppet.
Sincerely,
A former North Korean counterintelligence official. Jang Jin-sung, also a poet laureate under Kim Jong Il, told Vice News in a thorough story on the health of the DPRK regime that Kim Jong Un and an influential governing council set up under Kim’s father aren’t on the same page. And key factors, including an execution ordered by Kim last December, have left the ailing despot outside the circle of power. Vice reports:
According to Jang … members of the government’s Organization and Guidance Department (OGD), a powerful group of officials that once reported only to Kim Jong-il, have stopped taking orders from his son, Kim Jong-un. The OGD, Jang says, has effectively taken control of the country, and a conflict is simmering between factions that want to maintain absolute control over the economy and others seeking to gain wealth through foreign trade and a slightly more open market.
“On one hand, it’s people who want to maintain a regime monopoly,” Jang told VICE News through a translator in an interview Thursday. “On the other hand, it’s not like people are fighting against the regime, but in a policy sense they want to take advantage to get influence. It’s not actually consciously civil war, but there are these two incompatible forces at play.”
Jang said that the execution of Kim Jong Un’s uncle in December was an inflection point in his leadership and coincided with the OGD’s assertion of power. To touch a Kim family member publicly in such a way, Jang said, is a no-no, as it’s the “OGD’s claim to legitimacy.”
“It’s them saying no one is more legitimate than them. By [Kim’s uncle] dying, Kim Jong-un is now surrounded by the OGD.”
Other reports echo the tumult implied by Jang’s claims — MailOnline reports that Pyongyang is on lockdown, and Market Watch, citing a group of North Korean defectors called the North Korea Intellectuals Society, writes that Kim’s younger sister has been the figurehead of the government while he deals with gout or bum ankles or whatever it is that the corpulent tyrant is nursing.
