N Korean leader Kim Jong-il dies
| Daddy's little man.... |
From Reuters
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has died at the age of 69, state-run television has announced.
Mr Kim, who has led the communist nation since the death of his father in 1994, died on a train while visiting an area outside the capital, the announcement said.
He suffered a stroke in 2008 and was absent from public view for months.
His designated successor is believed to be his third son, Kim Jong-un, who is thought to be in his late 20s.
North Korea's state-run news agency, KCNA, urged people to unite behind the younger Kim.
"All party members, military men and the public should faithfully follow the leadership of comrade Kim Jong-un and protect and further strengthen the unified front of the party, military and the public," the news agency said.
A funeral for Kim Jong-il will be held in Pyongyang on 28 December and Kim Jong-un will head the funeral committee, KCNA said. A period of national mourning has been declared from 17 to 29 December.
The BBC's Lucy Williamson in Seoul says Mr Kim's death will cause huge shock waves across North Korea, an impoverished, nuclear-armed nation with few allies.
With barely concealed emotion, the newsreader dressed in black announced the death of North Korea's iconic leader - only the second the country has ever known.
He died, she said, of a heart attack brought on by mental and physical fatigue. Kim Jong-il had battled serious health problems for many years but his death has come more quickly than many expected.
His apparent heir, his son Kim Jong-un, has been groomed as the successor of the nuclear-armed state for little more than a year.
The question now is whether he has the power and authority to fill his father's shoes...
...Mr Kim inherited the leadership of North Korea - which remains technically at war with South Korea - from his father Kim Il-sung.
Shortly after he came to power, a severe famine caused by ill-judged economic reforms and poor harvests left an estimated two million people dead.
His regime has been harshly criticised for human rights abuses and is internationally isolated because if its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Under Mr Kim's leadership funds have been channelled to the military and in 2006 North Korea conducted its first nuclear test. It followed that up with a second one three years later. Multinational talks aimed at disarming North Korea have been deadlocked for months.
Mr Kim unveiled his son as his likely successor a year ago. Many had expected to see this process further consolidated in 2012...
As an Army lieutenant I spent my first assignment in South Korea and it was an eye opener. The general belief was Second Infantry Division was to die in place. We were the trip wire that would start Korean War II if the North tried another invasion. And we would routinely find tunnels over the Demilitarized Zone. It was a bit of a standing joke we were only 38 seconds from knowing the war had started. The was the estimated time it would take for artillery in the North to hit us in Camp Casey.
A few years ago CBS 60 Minutes did an excellent article on a German doctor who had spent over a year in North Korea. The link is here and if you haven't seen the report it's eye opening. Here are some highlights from Dr Vollertsen,
...While driving his jeep around the country, Vollertsen said he saw hungry, malnourished people everywhere foraging for food: “And I saw little children at the roadside picking up all those little insects and whatever they can eat. Women who are looking for some leaves and special herbs.”
Sadly, no birds were chirping. “The people are killing whatever can run, whatever can fly,” says Vollersten.
Hazel Smith, who recently spent 13 months in North Korea for the U.N., monitoring food aid shipments, confirms his reports. She said it's not just hospitals, but the whole country that lacks the most basic necessities.
Here’s a sampling from her list: No clean running water. Lack of fuel to boil much water. No soap, no disinfectant, no toilet paper. No toothpaste. No sanitary napkins, but many women have stopped menstruating because of malnutrition.
“There is chronic malnutrition throughout the country now. Which means that children and adults don't grow very much,” says Smith.
However, you wouldn't know it by looking at the capital Pyongyang, which is in large part a Potemkin village, built for show. A towering triangle touted to be the world's tallest hotel has so many structural flaws that it has never opened for business. Wide boulevards feature decorative female traffic wardens directing imaginary traffic, with robot-like precision.
I believe it was in this article the malnutrition was so bad the average North Korean is three inches shorter than the average South Korean.
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| Me in 89, younger, thinner and ever dumber than now! :) That is North Korea in the background. |
I remember serving on the DMZ with 5/20 Infantry during the summer of 89. We monitored a group of American students who were attending a festival in Pyongyang with signs of "US Imperialists" and "US out of Korea", etc. I've often wondered if they really were knowingly supporting this genocide. I'll give them the benefit of a doubt they didn't know...and hopefully they outgrew their youthful naive worldview.
But there is one pictures that puts North Korea, or Communism in general in a simple summation.
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| Notice the Korean peninsula north of the DMZ is almost dark. |
The South is a prosperous first world nation. Even by third world standards North Korea is a throw back to the 1700s. And we can thank this piece of human rot and his father Kim il Sung before him for the millions of dead in the area and the Korean War.
May he rest in piss. I have no doubt he and his daddy have a special ring of hell they are sharing right now. I only pray sometime in the future the peninsula will be reunited under a democratic Korea. The people of the north have suffered enough.
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