North Korea has executed the powerful uncle of young leader Kim Jong Un, state media said yesterday, the biggest upheaval in years as the ruling dynasty sought to distance itself from responsibility for the isolated state’s dire living standards.
Jang Song Thaek, considered the second most powerful man in the secretive North, was killed just days ahead of the second anniversary of the death of Kim Jong Il, the father of North Korea’s current ruler.
The execution coincided with Kim Jong Un – the third Kim to rule North Korea – suddenly being portrayed in state media as the image of his father rather than his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, who is still revered as the founder of the nation.
Kim Jong Il was blamed by some for the 1990s famine that killed a million people.
The North’s KCNA news agency released pictures yesterday of a handcuffed Jang being manhandled by guards and said that he had been executed for trying to seize power and for driving the economy “into an uncontrollable catastrophe”.
Jang was pictured in the ruling party’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper without his Kim Il Sung loyalty badge on his lapel when he was led away, which would indicate his disloyalty to North Koreans who all wear lapel badges.
Jang was married to Kim Jong Un’s paternal aunt and is believed to have been 67 years old. He had been purged in 2004 and disappeared from public view until 2006, but became a vice chairman of the powerful National Defence Commission and a member of the ruling Workers’ Party politburo.
He had visited Beijing, North Korea’s only major ally, and was in charge of economic projects as well running a string of illicit money-raising schemes for Pyongyang, according to North Korea experts and defectors.
While North Korea has purged many officials in its 65-year history, it is rare that anyone so powerful had been removed in such a public manner – suggesting a recognition of internal divisions and of competing factions surrounding Kim Jong Un.
“This is a man who could have competently executed a coup in North Korea,” said Mike Madden, an expert on the North’s power structure and author of the North Korea Leadership Watch website and blog.
The commentary from KCNA said that Jang had been plotting to overthrow Kim Jong Un and had “a fantastic dream to become premier... to grab the supreme power of the party and state”.
“The accused Jang brought together undesirable forces and formed a faction as the boss of a modern day factional group for a long time and thus committed such hideous crime as attempting to overthrow the state,” KCNA said.
“The special military tribunal of the Ministry of State Security of the DPRK ... ruled that he would be sentenced to death according to it. The decision was immediately executed,” it said, using the North’s title of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
North Korean politics are virtually impenetrable from outside and Jang could also easily have been purged over a falling out with Kim, or even with his wife.
Earlier this week, North Korea said it had stripped Jang of his power and positions, accusing him of criminal acts including mismanagement of the state financial system, womanising and alcohol abuse.