BEIJING — Last week, South Korean officials announced that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had executed one senior official, allegedly for slouching at a political meeting, and banished two others to re-education camps.
Here’s what experts are saying about the latest round of punishments.
Q: How much do we know about this execution?
A: Not much. South Korean officials told reporters that North Korea executed Kim Yong Jin, a 63-year-old deputy premier of education, in July by firing squad. Yet local media gave few details and attributed them to anonymous sources. South Korea’s Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon Hee confirmed the execution during a news conference Wednesday, according to CNN.
The briefing followed a report a day earlier by JoongAng Ilbo, a South Korean newspaper, claiming two senior North Korean officials — former agricultural minister Hwang Min and senior education ministry official Ri Yong Jin — had been executed with antiaircraft guns in August.
Q: So what does it take for a North Korean official to get executed?
A: Slumping, according to this week’s announcement. Kim Yong Jin, the education official, “was investigated by the North’s intelligence agency due to his sitting posture shown at a key parliamentary meeting held in late June,” reported South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency.
But very little about North Korean society is clear-cut or straightforward.
“This current story is that he shrugged — that there was some kind of insubordination,” said John Delury, a North Korea expert and professor at Yonsei University in Seoul. “So we assume from that, oh, Kim Jong Un is violent, and extremely insecure. If somebody doesn’t stiffen their back when they walk in the room, he executes them.”
The North and South have technically been at war since the Korean War in the 1950s, which ended in an armistice. According to Delury, the two sides “are always badmouthing each other — that’s par for the course.”
Q: What does South Korea make of all this?
A: South Korea points to killings and recent defections by high-level officials as signs of cracks in the regime.
But the regime shows no obvious signs of rupture, and Kim’s father and grandfather ruled for decades without facing any serious opposition.
Seoul hasn’t always guessed correctly at its neighbor’s maneuvers. Earlier this year, southern intelligence officials failed to notice its rival had prepared for a fourth nuclear test.
Q: How much do we know about Kim Jong Un’s motives?
A: Again, very little. The last known execution of such a high-ranking official took place in 2013, when North Korea said Kim had executed the second in command — his own uncle, Jang Song Thaek. North Korea’s state media outlet, the Korea Central News Agency, released a 2,700-word statement calling Jang “despicable human scum” and accusing him of plotting to overthrow the government. Experts believe the new leader more likely wanted to eliminate older cadres who questioned his rule.
Q: How long has this kind of thing been going on?
A: A long time. Since leaders proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Korea in 1948, the country has led a brutal existence.
Its first leader, Kim Il Sung, carried out bloody re-education campaigns for his nearly half-century reign. Kim Jong Un followed his father into power in 2011 and since has pushed out certain military and political elites in an effort to consolidate authority. A United Nations report in 2013 called Kim Jong Un’s public executions “one of the dreadful tools” used to rule by fear.