Can Kim Jong Il Outlive “Military First?”

In the last two months, I’ve come to believe that the decay of Kim Jong Il’s control of North Korea is accelerating. I’m not quite on board with Jane’s, which predicts imminent collapse, because regime collapse is not proceeding at equal rates in all areas of North Korea, and history tells us that there’s been plenty of dissent in North Korea that the regime was able to contain, localize, and suppress. There are, however, clear signs that chaos is taking its toll on the regime’s control: a worsening food situation, rising drug abuse, outbreaks of disease, mass defections by border guards, and more. Recent happenings with the movement and control of North Korean diplomats are also intriguing.

The regime’s reaction to the rising chaos is predictably ruthless: shooting corrupt officials, shooting refugees, and shooting people who try to cross the border into China in search of food (see Sonagi’s post at TMH and the North Korea Monitor). That is a change. In the recent past, the regime had been relatively lenient in the punishment of those who crossed the border temporarily to trade or earn money to bring home. The regime has obviously decided that border-crossing for any reason is a threat to its survival, so examples must be set:

“It has become a daily routine for a few residents to disappear and illegally cross the border to visit relatives in China,” he is reported as saying. “We shot them to send a warning to people over this.” [Good Friends, via the BBC]

The lives of women in particular seem to be cheap to the North Korean regime. Where else would women risk such a fate to sell themselves into sexual slavery?

A North Korean woman lies dead, frozen into the sands of the Tumen River (Chosun Ilbo photo)

And yet, some North Korean still dare to express open contempt for the regime:

In a newsletter, Good Friends said residents who witnessed the shooting were shocked at the harshness of the punishment. Some were crying at the scene, it reported. The group quoted a woman as saying: “Everyone is anxious about a lack of food. The shooting has made people angry.” [Good Friends, via the BBC]

The Daily NK has much more:

In addition, the report quoted Onsung citizens who were made to take part in the public execution as saying, “This execution is too much. These were all acts of survival for which they received too severe a punishment. It seemed the women couldn’t even close their eyes as they should; they were not allowed to die peacefully.

“This time, they were really unfortunate,” one citizen said angrily. “Many people have made a living by crossing the border illegally and doing businesses, but nothing has ever happened to them. It was a mortifying death.

Also a 40 year old man who tried to speak out against the execution retorted, “I am wondering if those who hand down a proclamation for the harsh treatment of criminals or those who carry out that proclamation, have lived or understood the life of the hungry just like the people who committed the crime did. The man expressed his discontent, stating, “They have no idea that the people are so weary because these officials or agents are living well in their official duties. [Daily NK]

Yes, there have been plenty of documented examples of nascent dissent, but even two years ago, we didn’t see reports like this, this, this, and this, suggesting that people dared to express dissenting views to strangers, or in public.

“These days in the jangmadang [markets], conflicts between traders and managers or safety agents are getting serious. They yell at and fight with each other. The residents are not afraid of the agents, compared to the past. It seems that people’s resentment towards the absurdity of the regime is growing. [Daily NK]

If the Daily NK and Good Friends know this, so does the regime, which would explain why the regime’s brutality has seemed so desperate recently. The regime knows it can survive hunger, even widespread and repressed discontent, but it can’t survive unless it keeps the fear-meter pegged. That’s why the one group Kim Jong Il has to actually keep happy is the one that controls the men who wield the guns, who have the ultimate monopoly on violence. Once the military gets the idea that its interests will be subordinated to those of any other group, Kim Jong Il’s grip on that monopoly (not to mention, his life) is in danger. After all, the military need not overthrow Kim Jong Il to end his regime; it need only suffer an attack of ambivalence at the Ceausescu Moment.

That’s why I pay close attention to things like this:

In late February, a number of sources told the Daily NK through telephone interviews that instructions came down from the Party to each province on February 1st to “pay more respect to the local party apparatus than to the armed forces.

Various sources said, “The rumours say that the instructions are intended for everyone (resident of Hoeryong)”, “Foreign currency-earning workers were given a mass lecture on this subject in mid-February (resident of Chongjin)”, and “People welcomed the command, hoping for less harassment from the army (resident of Hyesan)”.

The change could mean that Kim Jong Il, who has emphasized a “military-first policy” for the 10 years since the famine of the mid-1990s, is shifting ruling power from the military into Party-concentrated control. A North Korean specialist and defector, speaking on condition of anonymity, said “If the instruction is not bogus, Kim Jong Il could be thinking that “Ëœit is the time for a power-shift from the military to the party.'” [Daily NK]

Back in 2004, a group of defectors interviewed for OFK reported that some North Korean military units had turned to banditry in the countryside, probably as much out of boredom as hunger. It would seem that the army’s behavior is contributing to popular discontent. If (a) this latest report is true, and (b) it is in fact related to a succession struggle, then it should be read in the context of another report, that Kim Jong Il’s new wife is a player in that intrigue:

Kim Oak (44), known as Kim Jong Il’s fourth and current wife, is expected to play a crucial role in deciding the dictator’s successor, an expert on North Korea said in an interview with Radio Free Asia.

Center for Naval Analyses (CAN) Corporation’s analyst Ken Gause said, on Tuesday, that the U.S. intelligence agencies pay attention to Kim Oak, who is the first lady of North Korea and “can control access to Kim Jong Il and declare herself as a representative of Kim Jong Il if he becomes gravely ill. [….]

In 2006, Kim Oak followed Kim Jong Il’s visit to China and met Chinese President Hu Jintao, proving her significance as Kim’s most entrusted entourage. “Kim Oak is able to get the most up-to-date information on Kim Jong Il’s health or his whereabouts in case of emergency, so she can act quickly and swiftly” said Gause.

He added that “Kim Oak is deeply involved in running Kim Jong Il’s personal organizations or the Department 39 (handles Kim Jong Il’s slush funds), thus she has both authority and means to influence decision of Kim Jong Il’s successor in case of his accident. [Daily NK]

Trying to sideline the North Korean Army is an exceedingly dangerous game, one that’s more likely than anything else to fracture and destabilize the current power structure.

The real trick to predicting a significant event, of course, is the timing of it. I choose to duck that question by simply pointing to what I believe to be accelerating trends toward political and social instability. The weasel-word “seem” is my way of acknowledging that with great new sources like the Daily NK and Good Friends, more information is finding its way out of North Korean than in 1997, when we belatedly realized that North Korea was several years into a famine that might already have killed a million people.

Besides — revolutions aren’t necessarily one-day affairs. I expect North Korea’s revolution to be protracted and bloody, most likely starting with a suppressed uprising in the country’s north or east, perhaps followed by internecine battles among different armed regime factions, prolonged insurgency, and even Chinese intervention (which would be such a disaster for China that I’m tempted to welcome it with tossed bouquets). The only thing that will transform North Korea suddenly will be a wholesale military mutiny, which would only supplant one ruthless tyranny with another.