On December 17, it was ten years since North Korea’s former leader Kim Jong-il passed away.
It is marked with eleven days of national mourning in the closed nation.
Jong-il’s son and current leader of the country, Kim Jong-un, has in this connection introduced very strict rules for how the celebration should be carried out. Among other things, the North Koreans can not drink alcohol for eleven days.
In addition, there is a ban on laughing, and showing any kind of joy, according to The Guardian.
Pictures from the capital Pyeongyang show markings where the leader and thousands of North Koreans honor the former leader in silence.
– MOURNING: North Koreans bow their heads in front of the statue of current leader Kim Jong-un. Photo: STR
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Absolute control
The tribute to the former leader also marks the tenth anniversary of Kim Jong-un taking power in North Korea.
Jong-un is now 37 years old. When he took power, it was far from certain that he would enjoy the same undisputed positions as his father and grandfather.
Speculation was rife that there would be mutiny, coups or the introduction of collective leadership.
But ten years later, the third generation of Kim has disproved the skeptics and the family dynasty is still alive. Kim has kept and in many ways fastened the iron grip.
Kim has consolidated his position with hundreds of executions and imprisonments, several of them aimed at family members and people who were loyal to his father.
The great heir
Kim was born on January 8, 1984 and was the third and youngest of Kim Jong-il’s sons. In September 2010, he was appointed four-star general. A month later, he made his public debut and stood by his father’s side during a military parade.
When his father died in December 2011, Kim was referred to as “the great heir”.
The brutal consolidation of power has been united with personalities that are carefully constructed to be used in propaganda on state television.
But now that he has ruled the country for a decade, Kim faces new and greater challenges than before. The brief entry on the world stage when he and Trump went from insults on Twitter to embraces and personal meetings is over.
Kim and North Korea are facing crushing sanctions, a pandemic that is also affecting the hermetically sealed country and growing economic problems.
A period of growth
Analysts say that the grip on power may be weakened if he fails to achieve the promise of developing both new nuclear weapons and saving the economy. It is a task of dimensions.
For several years, Kim actually led to moderate economic growth in North Korea. Reforms were implemented for both trade and a more market-oriented economy. New and stricter sanctions in 2016, when Kim increased the nuclear program, have reversed that trend.
At the same time, negotiations with Washington are at a standstill. President Joe Biden’s administration seems far less interested in reaching an agreement with Kim without leaving the nuclear program, which the North Koreans see as a guarantee of survival as a country.
A small hope for progress came this weekend, when the South Korean president announced that a peace agreement was approaching that would finally end the Korean War, which began in 1950 and in reality ended three years later.
Negotiations broke down
How Kim handles the economy in the next few years could be crucial to the Kim family’s dynasty in the long run, says Professor Park Won Gon at Seoul’s Ewha University.
– The nuclear weapons program, the economy and the stability of the regime are closely linked. If the nuclear issue is not resolved, the economy will not improve. It opens up for dissatisfaction and confusion in North Korean society, says Park.
Negotiations with the United States broke down after the summit in February 2019. The United States rejected the demand to ease important sanctions in exchange for the decommissioning of an aging nuclear plant.
The two parties have not met in public since October 2019. Two months later, Kim promised in a speech at home that the nuclear weapons program would be expanded in the face of pressure from the United States, which was characterized as gangster-like.
Trade with China, one of the few countries with close ties to North Korea, is also failing. According to South Korean intelligence, trade with China had fallen by two-thirds in September this year.
Make concessions
In North Korea, there is a shortage of food, sky-high prices and a shortage of important products such as medicines. Kim’s embrace of the nuclear weapons program is to blame.
“It is the atomic bombs that created this disability for Kim, but he maintains a conflicting policy by increasing the program instead of moving away from it,” said Go Myong-hyun, an analyst at Seoul’s Asan Institute for Political Studies.
– The sanctions will be maintained. A state-controlled economy was never the answer for North Korea in the past, and will not be the answer now. At one point, Kim has to make a difficult choice about how long he will stick to the atomic bombs, Go says.
There have been acknowledgments from Kim over the past year. In January, he admitted that the economic development plan had failed. In April, he said the country was in the worst situation it had ever experienced, due to the pandemic, sanctions and natural disasters.
In October, however, he promised to build an unbeatable defense and showed off missiles that can reach American soil.
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