Kim Jong Un is a no-show again (updated 11 Oct 2014)
TOKYO – The mystery surrounding the whereabouts and status of Kim Jong Un deepened on Friday, when the North Korean leader missed a celebration for the 69th anniversary of the founding of the Korean Workers’ Party.
It is now more than five weeks since Kim was seen in public, and his absence, coupled with surprisingly frank official reports that he is suffering from “discomfort” have sparked rumors of every malady from obesity to overthrow.
As with most things concerning North Korea, the truth remains far from clear. But the state-run Korean Central News Agency notably left Kim’s name off a list of dignitaries who paid their respects early Friday morning to his father and grandfather, Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung, at the mausoleum where both lie. [Washington Post, Anna Fifield]
Reading KCNA’s coverage of the event, I couldn’t help thinking of Brian Myers’s book:
Therefore, the people in the DPRK have confirmed once again the truth that the WPK led by Kim Jong Un is the genuine motherly party, to which they could entrust their life and destiny. [“WPK, Motherly Party,” KCNA, Oct. 9. 2014]
Well, he probably has the man-bosoms for the job. The South Koreans, no doubt with an eye on the KOSPI, say he’s still in charge, presumably at one of his many palaces.
I wonder if it has a lactation room.
Now, I seem to recall that Kim Jong Il also had some fairly long periods of absence that eventually ended with him waddling out onto some reviewing stand, but I do think it’s very different when we’re talking about a new, post-pubescent heir to the throne who has been chewing through minions at an alarming rate, and who is functionally the last of the royal line.
Feel free to offer your own speculation in the comments, but if — like me — you have no unique facts or arguments to help focus our speculation, at least try to be funnier than Daniel Drezner, which shouldn’t be that hard.
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Updates, October 11, 2014:
* The Duffel Blog was funnier than Daniel Drezner. HT: Marcus Noland.
* The White House says rumors of a coup are false, although I’m not sure how they can be sure of that. Nor are they denying that Kim Jong Un is ill or incapacitated. I realize that it sounds more cautious and sober to deny dramatic-sounding alternatives, but if there isn’t any hard evidence one way or another, negative speculation is just as baseless as affirmative speculation. Some reports allude, for example, to the absence of unusual troop movements or shifts in the tone of Pyongyang’s propaganda, but if some sort of coup really were underway in a state that has build in so many bureaucratic firewalls against exactly that, the plotters would want to move slowly and deliberately, causing as little shock or reaction as possible until they were firmly in control. On balance, the negative speculators are probably right, but they’re still speculating.
Having followed North Korean affairs for over thirty years myself, I have to confess that there is nothing new about the current jumble of conflicting and sometimes outlandish guesses that passes as commentary on North Korean current events. Given the DPRK government’s ruthless control and manipulation of information—two of the few things Pyongyang can actually do well—outsiders are often left more or less divining signs from chicken entrails. Add to the mix the South Korean intelligence community’s unhealthy but longstanding history of attempting to play the local and global press in accordance with its own short term agenda, and one can see how easy it is for unseasoned reporters, or even more inveterate “North Korea hands,” to get caught up in a hologram of lies.
Early on in my own research, I realized that one had to approach the North Korean puzzle as if one were in a Miss Marple murder mystery, that is to say, by proceeding under the assumption that everyone is a liar and has their own reason for misrepresenting the truth. If one starts with that premise, and takes William of Ockham as one’s guiding star, you have a chance of figuring out what is going on—but only a chance.
That sounds about right to me. Sometimes, the three hardest words to say are “I don’t know.”
* The Onion worries that Kim Jong Un’s absence leaves North Koreans with no one to agree with.
This isn’t hard to understand. Ri Sol-ju is an insufferable wife who won’t let me out of the house unless I disconnect from the IV drip of emmental cheese. Sure, I could go and watch some fake rockets drive by a reviewing stand, or fake humility while the masses prostrate themselves before me, but I absolutely refuse to do so if it would in any way interfere with my ability to mainline some cheesy goodness.
Wow, that WaPo article was a complete waste of space. The Onion might have carried it…normally they have some decent articles around NK but I just want to slap that guy for wasting the 5 minutes of my life it just took. In all seriousness, this turn of events is somewhat unsettling and very mysterious. I can’t wait to see what happens in the upcoming month or so and what explanations or stories come out of the party newspaper to explain it.
Kim Jong Un has really turned into an International Man of Mystery – wait, that’s it! He’s on a secret undercover mission with Austin Powers!
Flash Traffic: looks like the Norks fired at some of the balloons that were floated over, with some of the AAA fire landing on Yeoncheon.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/north-koreas-kim-misses-another-event-amid-gunfire-at-border-1412937083?tesla=y
As to what’s going on: KJU is participating in the Annual True Korea Battle Royale, as depicted by College Humor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOuadhhUWaQ&list=PLuKg-WhduhklQR2uqYCE_aSZgfJLsy4fx&index=11
As previously stated, it’s usual for these creeps to go out of sight for periods of time. But I keep coming back to the NK media admitting his ill health. Why do that? Why say anything at all?
http://www.theonion.com/articles/where-is-kim-jongun,37147/
Clearly, Kim Jong Un emerged from his burrow, saw his shadow, and retreated back inside for more congnac and cheese. 20 years more totalitarianism.
Kim Jong Il also had some fairly long periods of absence that eventually ended with him waddling out onto some reviewing stand
True, but Kim Jong Un is 31 years old. Nobody that young should be ill for five weeks, even if they are seriously overweight.
Assuming his absence is health-related, it’s got to be something congenital. Which would explain why it’s being kept hidden, as such a defect in a Kim seems problematic to the Baekdu Bloodline narrative.
It’s not “man-bosoms,” it’s “man-boobs”! Or “moobs” for short.
Jeffery Hodges
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Personally I think something has happened to him, I doubt he has the same level of influence among those with power like Kim Jong Il once had. It wouldn’t surprise me if someone has overthrown him.
There is a report on yahoo news that his German doctor reports Baby Kim is suffering from endocrine disorders. These can be serious and, if cancer-related, are generally terminal, One can hope.
This might explain his failure to appear electronically, on DPRK Skype …he might be swollen in the jowls even more than previously.
Maybe he was playing soldier. Based on a “source,” Benjamin Kang Lim and James Pearson report for Reuters:
“He ordered all the generals to take part in drills and he took part too. They were crawling and running and rolling around, and he pulled a tendon,” the source told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
“He injured his ankle and knee around late August or early September while drilling because he is overweight. He limped around in the beginning but the injury worsened,” the source said.
NK Daily is also reporting that the most common rumor in North Korea is that he injured an ankle. My guess is that this rumor was started by the regime. An injured ankle is a temporary condition, and if it was sustained while taking part in military drills, it shows Kim in a positive light. A serious & chronic condition like an endocrine disorder just couldn’t be acknowledged on any level.
Glans:
That explanation has the ring of plausibility to it, I think. The pulled tendon does, at least; the military drill accident maybe sounds a bit too symbolically appropriate to be true. Could just be a skiing accident…
Would it really be so bad for him to show up in a plaster, though? I understand that the DPRK doesn’t want its godling to show signs of mortality, but would the bad optics of a leg plaster and a crutch really outweigh the embarrassment of a no-show on National Independence Day, supposedly one of the big seven national holidays? You’d think they’d just keep the worst of the hobbling out of the video footage.
Speaking of national holidays, I suppose the more interesting question is not how long ago a ruling Kim last disappeared for a few weeks at a time, but rather how long ago one of them last missed a National Independence Day or something similarly important in terms of Kremlinesque power symbolism. A similar question is to look for the dog that didn’t bark in terms of troop movements: there may be an absence of unexpected troop movements, but is there also an absence of expected troop movements? Wasn’t at least one big holiday’s military parade apparently cancelled in 2013? That might suggest a nervousness about bringing military units into Pyongyang.
What surprises me is that the man hasn’t even done a video of himself sat at a desk making an address to the North Korean people. Simply speaking to a camera be it from a news agency or otherwise is a simple thing for anyone to do. If he’s unwell, he must be in a bad way.
BBC reports that KCNA reports that King Little Fatso III hassled people at a scientist housing district on Tuesday:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-29608096
The BBC report, and all the other news pages it URL’d, did NOT have a picture of His Lowness to support the story. I suppose I could look at the KCNA site, but I dont want a Nork virus . . .
Life imitates The Onion.
As the dear leader truly is a man of remarkable capacity of achieving the highest of goals in service of his heroic nation, no true patriot will be surprised when they learn that the dear Kim Jong Un has set off for a second space journey, now to outer space, but not forgetting, in his wisdom, to make a quick stop on his homeway on the moon, for a brief second visit there, and while there, takes advantage of the situation and brings lots and lots of yummy cheese to share with his loving people.