Book quotes Kim Jong Il's son as saying he fears North Korea near collapse

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

TOKYO –  A new book claims that the eldest son of North Korea's late leader Kim Jong Il believes the impoverished regime is in danger of collapse and that his young half-brother, chosen to lead after Kim's death, is merely a figurehead.

The book by Tokyo-based journalist Yoji Gomi went on sale Wednesday. He says it is based primarily on email exchanges he had with Kim Jong Nam over many years.

The book drew immediate attention as a rare view into the family that has led the secretive country for decades -- though Kim Jong Nam is thought to be estranged from his family and the workings of government. Since Kim Jong Il's death Dec. 17, North Korea has been led by his youngest son, Kim Jong Un.

"Jong Un will just be a figurehead," the book quotes Kim Jong Nam as saying. It claims he said the collapse of North Korea's economy is likely unless it initiates reforms, which could also bring it down.

"Without reforms and libereralization, the collapse of the economy is within sight," he quoted Kim as saying. "But reforms and opening up could also invite dangers for the regime."

Gomi, a Tokyo Shimbun journalist who had assignments in Seoul and Beijing, claims he exchanged 150 emails and has spent a total of seven hours interviewing Kim Jong Nam, who was seen as a possible successor until he fell out of favor with Kim Jong Il in 2001.

Gomi says he met Kim Jong Nam in person in 2004, in Beijing, and twice last year. Gomi was not immediately available for comment on the book.

Not long after Kim Jong Il's funeral, Jong Nam suggested in an interview with a Japanese TV network that he opposes a hereditary transfer of power to his young half-brother, who is believed to be in his late 20s.

That was a rare public sign of discord in the tightly choreographed succession process, but analysts said Jong Nam spends so much time outside his native land that his opinion carries little weight.

Kim Jong Nam, who did not attend the funeral, made similar comments in his communications with Gomi, the book claims.

"As a matter of common sense, a transfer to the third generation is unacceptable," Kim Jong Nam was quoted as saying in an email dated this month. "The power elite that have ruled the country will continue to be in control."

He added: "I have my doubts about whether a person with only two years of grooming as a leader can govern."

Party and military officials have moved quickly to install Kim Jong Un as "supreme leader" of the people, party and military.

But the new ruler's youth and quick ascension to power have raised questions in foreign capitals about how ready he is to inherit rule over this nation of 24 million with a nuclear program as well as chronic trouble feeding all its people.

A senior North Korean party official, however, told the AP in a recent interview that Kim Jong Un was ready to lead and had spent years working closely with his late father and helped him make key policy decisions on economic and military affairs.

Kim Jong Nam is widely believed to have dropped out of the succession race after embarrassing the government in 2001, when he was caught trying to enter Japan on a fake passport. He said he wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland.

Jong Nam, the oldest of three brothers thought to be in the running, is the closest thing the country has to an international playboy and is the only one who speaks to the foreign media. He travels freely and spends much of his time in China or the country's special autonomous region of Macau -- the center of Asian gambling with its Las Vegas-style casinos.

Experts said he will most likely continue living abroad.

Kim Jong Il is known to have three sons -- one from his second wife and two from his third.

Kim often derided the middle son, Jong Chol, as "girlish," a former Kim Jong Il chef, who goes by the pen name Kenji Fujimoto, said in a 2003 memoir.

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Kim Jong Il's other son expects North Korean regime to fail, journalist says - CNN International

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Kim Jong Nam, the eldest son, is the half-brother of Kim Jong Un, the new leader of North KoreaKim Jong Nam is the most public of Kim Jong Il's sonsHe painted a picture of a father who was strict but was often warm-hearted, journalist says

Tokyo (CNN) -- They share the same rotund facial features, similar expressions and gait. But the two sons of Kim Jong Il have never met, and based on a new book being published in Japan this week, there appears to be little fraternal allegiance, at least from the eldest son's side.

Kim Jong Nam, the eldest son, is the half-brother of Kim Jong Un, the new leader of North Korea. Kim Jong Nam believes his youngest brother will fail as the "supreme leader" of the reclusive state, according to the book's author, Yoji Gomi.

"He's not comfortable that his younger brother is succeeding the power of Kim Jong Il," says Gomi, the author of "My Father, Kim Jong Il, and Me," which will hit bookshelves in Tokyo on Wednesday. "He (Kim Jong Nam) sees his brother failing. He thinks he (Kim Jong Un) has a lack of experience, he's too young, and he didn't have enough time to be groomed. Those three reasons are why he thinks he'll fail."

Kim Jong Nam is the most public of Kim Jong Il's sons, known primarily for his blunders and semi-exile from North Korea. An overweight and careless playboy, Kim Jong Nam enraged his father more than a decade ago when he was arrested slipping into Japan with forged documents -- simply to visit Disneyland. Kim Jong Nam lives in China and Macau and has occasionally popped up in the Japanese news media.

It was during one of those appearances in front of Japanese reporters -- in Beijing, during 2004 -- that Gomi, a reporter for the Tokyo Shimbun, first met Kim Jong Nam. They exchanged email addresses and began an occasional correspondence. In the past few years, Gomi said they had begun to write more, exchanging 150 emails. Last year, Kim Jong Nam agreed to meet with Gomi in Macau and Beijing for interviews.

What surprised Gomi the most, he said, is that the eldest of Kim Jong Il's sons was very smart and knowledgeable about the world -- and open-minded, especially about economic reforms.

"He spoke out against his father's 'military first' policy," says Gomi, countering widely held notions that the Disneyland debacle caused Kim Jong Nam to fall out of favor with his father. "He wants North Korea to embrace economic reform and open its doors."

Kim Jong Nam painted a picture of a father who was strict but was often warm-hearted to his eldest son, Gomi said, especially on special occasions. "Kim Jong Il called his son on his birthday," Gomi said.

Kim Jong Nam says the half-brothers were kept apart, following an ancient history of raising potential successors separately.

He says his father refused to discuss the succession of power for many years because it signaled his own death, according to Gomi -- only after his illness accelerated did the succession begin.

Both sons were educated in Switzerland, leaving Kim Jong Nam convinced that his country needed to embrace economic reforms. Kim Jong Nam believes his brother won't have the power to push through reforms, Gomi said.

"He's afraid the youngest son has no idea, no vision about economic reform," he said.

Professor Andrei Lankov of Kookmin University says Kim Jong Nam has been fairly public in the past, keeping his distance from the regime's inner circle. Lankov says he believes the latest comments are the reaction of a normal, intelligent human being who has a good understanding of the situation in North Korea.

"I would say maybe this smart, overweight playboy from Macau has the highest chances of physical survival of all the Kim Jong Il children," says Lankov.

"In the long run, the history of the North Korean state is going to end badly. We might see a coup, a revolution, a conspiracy, because in the very long run the system is not sustainable," Lankov said. "He (Kim Jong Nam) is away, he is secure. It is quite possible that many of his siblings will die a violent death sooner or later, and he is likely to live until an old age, writing memoirs, explaining to everybody how misunderstood his family was."

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Top North Korean official says Kim Jong Un ready to lead

PYONGYANG, North Korea –  A senior North Korean party official dismissed concerns about Kim Jong Un's readiness to lead, saying he spent years working closely with his late father and helped him make key policy decisions on the economy as well as military affairs.

In the first high-level interview with foreign journalists since Kim Jong Il's Dec. 17 death, Politburo member and Kim family confidante Yang Hyong Sop told The Associated Press that North Koreans were in good hands with their young new leader. He emphasized an unbroken continuity from father to son that suggests a continuation of Kim Jong Il's key policies.

"We suffered the greatest loss in the history of our nation as a result of the sudden, unexpected and tragic loss of the Great Leader Kim Jong Il," he said in the interview Monday at Mansudae Assembly Hall, seat of the North Korean legislative body.

"But still, we are not worried a bit," he added, "because we know that we are being led by Comrade Kim Jong Un, who is fully prepared to carry on the heritage created by the Great Gen. Kim Jong Il."

Daily life in this cold, somber capital has begun to return to normal one month after Kim's death, reportedly from a heart attack while riding on his private train.

The white mourning bouquets and massive portraits of the departed leader have been cleared from Pyongyang's main buildings and monuments. People are busy getting back to daily life, with children whizzing down icy slopes on wooden sleds and workers running to catch morning buses and trams as the Kim Jong Un ode "Footsteps" blares over loudspeakers.

Vast Kim Il Sung Square, where a sea of mourners converged after Kim's death, was ghostly quiet except for a few people who scurried quickly across the frigid plaza.

In recent weeks, as North Koreans filled the capital's streets with their emotive mourning and the government staged elaborate funeral proceedings, party and military officials moved quickly to install Kim's son as "supreme leader" of the people, party and military.

Kim Jong Un had been kept out of the public eye for most of his life before suddenly emerging as his father's heir only in September 2010. Though still in his 20s, he was quickly promoted to four-star general and named a vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea.

But the new ruler's youth and quick ascension to power have raised questions in foreign capitals about how ready he is to inherit rule over this nation of 24 million with a nuclear program as well chronic trouble feeding all its people.

Yang said he had no concerns about Kim's ability to lead.

"The Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un had long assisted the Great General Kim Jong Il," he told AP. "It's not a secret that he has helped the great general in many different aspects -- not only in military affairs but also the economy and other areas as well."

A soft-spoken octogenarian who is vice president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly and a standing member of the powerful Political Bureau of the party's Central Committee, Yang has long-standing ties with the Kim family that stretch back to his close alliance with the nation's founder, Kim Il Sung.

During a 2010 interview with Associated Press Television News in Pyongyang, he provided the first confirmation by a government official that Kim Jong Un would eventually become the nation's next leader.

"He knows what the exact intention of the Great Gen. Kim Jong Il was," he said Monday.

His comments this week indicated there would be little change to major policies laid out by Kim Jong Un's father in the three years before his death. Yang said the new leader was focused on a "knowledge-based" economy and looking at economic reforms enacted by other nations, including China.

The North has increasingly looked to China for guidance on how to revitalize its moribund economy, particularly as South Korea, Japan and other nations have frozen trade and aid to the North amid concerns about its nuclear ambitions.

Little is known about Kim Jong Un's background and experience, though North Koreans have been told he studied at Kim Il Sung Military University and was involved in military operations such as the November 2010 artillery attack on a South Korean island that killed four South Koreans.

Earlier this month, North Korea's state-run broadcaster aired a documentary about the new leader that began filling in some blanks prior to his public debut.

The footage shows him observing the April 2009 launch of a long-range rocket and quotes him threatening to wage war against any nation attempting to intercept the rocket, which North Korea claimed was carrying a communications satellite but the United States, South Korea and Japan say was really a test of its long-range missile technology.

It was the first indication of his involvement in that controversial launch.

Yet even if Kim Jong Un was playing a prominent behind-the-scenes role prior to 2010, his training period would have been much shorter than that of his Kim Jong Il, who spent 20 years working under his own father, Kim Il Sung.

After his father's death, Kim Jong Il observed a three-year mourning period before formally assuming leadership.

"Kim Jong Il had the benefit of time. He had 20 years to grow a cult of personality around him," said Cheong Seong-chang, an expert on North Korean affairs at the private Sejong Institute in South Korea. "Kim Jong Un had only two to three years at the most ... so authorities are now hurrying their propaganda efforts."

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