By Patrick Harrington and Sangwon Yoon - Dec 28, 2011 12:28 PM GMT+0700
North Korea today lays to rest Kim Jong Il, who developed nuclear weapons while more than 1 million of his people starved to death, in a ceremony observers may scrutinize for signs of the regime’s new power hierarchy under son Kim Jong Un.
State television showed soldiers massed in formation in Pyongyang as a limousine carrying a giant portrait of Kim Jong Il drove slowly along wide, snow covered avenues. The younger Kim cried as he walked beside the hearse carrying his father.
People en route to the ceremony carried white Chrysanthemum flowers through falling snow, said Gunter Unterbeck, a German national who’s lived in the North Korean capital since 1996. Children without real flowers made them from paper.
Analysts and South Korea media said the funeral will mimic that of that nation’s founder, Kim Il Sung, in 1994. That ceremony went for one hour and involved the new leader walking around the coffin in the presence of the country’s top officials, Yonhap News said.
Watching how people are aligned around Kim Jong Un “we can have a clue on the power dynamic in the North Korean leadership,” said Paik Hak Soon, a director of inter-Korean relations at the Seongnam, South Korea-based Sejong Institute research group.
‘Great Successor’
The ceremony is aimed at portraying broad public support for the regime, according to analysts. State media have portrayed the image of a Kim Jong Un solidifying his hold on the succession, referring to him as “supreme leader of the revolutionary armed forces” and “great successor” to his late father and grandfather.
“North Korea will try to get as much as possible out of the funeral,” said Lee Jung Hoon, a political science professor at Yonsei University in Seoul. “They know everyone in the world is watching them and they will make it a really touching drama.”
A notice in today’s paper said all social life would stop for three minutes from noon, including trains and cars, said Unterbeck. People were busy cleaning the streets and buildings this morning, he said.
‘Bid Farewell’
“All streets in Pyongyang and all towns and villages throughout the country are now inundated with people sweeping away snow before bidding their last farewell to the leader,” the official Korean Central News Agency said in an English- language report.
No government officials from Seoul will pay condolences, according to the Unification Ministry, which oversees policy toward North Korea. Lee Hee Ho, the 89-year-old widow of former South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, and Hyundai Group Chairwoman Hyun Jeong Eun led a private group of 18 South Koreans on a two-day visit, where state media showed them being greeted by Kim Jong Un on Dec. 26.
Concern the political outlook in the North could worsen contributed to a slump in consumer confidence in South Korea, which fell to a three-month low in December, a survey released yesterday showed. The Kospi (KOSPI) slid 3.4 percent on Dec. 19 when the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il was announced, then rallied 4 percent the next two trading days.
Balloon Launch
South Korean civic groups and defectors from the North today said they launched balloons that will float across the border to deliver leaflets criticizing Kim Jong Il and his successor. North Korea has previously said such acts could ignite a war.
Today’s funeral may feature Kim Jong Un and the chairman of the National Funeral Committee viewing Kim Jong Il’s coffin along with other senior officials, Yonhap News reported in a Dec. 25 preview of the event. If the 1994 protocol is followed, Kim Jong Un, his sister Kim Kyong Hui and the head of the Supreme People’s Assembly, Kim Yong Nam, will stand in the front row.
Premier Choe Yong Rim, other high-ranking figures and Jang Song Thaek, Kim Jong Un’s uncle and the brother-in-law of the late Kim Jong Il, will also likely be present, Yonhap said.
The funeral will be followed by a national memorial service tomorrow, the official Korean Central News Agency has said. That will involve a nationwide three minutes of silence, and gun volleys will be fired in Pyongyang and in provincial seats.
In the end, the funeral propaganda is unlikely to reveal how strong of a hold Kim Jong Un has on North Korea, said Brian Myers, a professor of international studies at Dongseo University in Busan, South Korea.
“Whether or not he’s really in control of the military or whether the military is really pulling the strings is not something we are going to be finding out,” he said. “To convey to the North Korean public that the country is being de facto run by a group of old generals would not be in their interest.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Patrick Harrington in Tokyo at pharrington8@bloomberg.net; Seonjin Cha in Seoul at scha2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Hirschberg at phirschberg@bloomberg.net
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment