As the world community continues to scratch its collective head over what kind of regime North Korea has, a Hong Kong newspaper with strong ties to China reports that North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un’s powerful uncle was meted out a brutal form of execution: he was stripped naked and thrown into a pack of 120 dogs that had been starved for days.
Kim’s second-in-command uncle Jang Song Thaek was reportedly made dog dinner along with five other officials in a horrific execution reportedly supervised by Kim himself.
No confirmation has been made on this report, which is being circulated now via news organizations and weblogs, but it feeds into the image of North Korea as a country that has government that doesn’t fit into the world’s mainstream — and is capable of great brutality.
Jang Song Thaek, who had been considered Kim’s second-in-command, was executed last month after being found guilty of “attempting to overthrow the state,” North Korea’s state-run news agency reported.
The official North Korean account on Dec. 12 did not specify how Jang was put to death.
Hong Kong-based pro-Beijing newspaper Wen Wei Po reported that Jang and his five closest aides were set upon by 120 hunting hounds which had been starved for five days.
Kim and his brother Kim Jong Chol supervised the one-hour ordeal along with 300 other officials, according to Wen Wei Po. The newspaper added that Jang and other aides were “completely eaten up.”
Could this report be bogus or not? Or could it be that some in China are trying to distance themselves from the regime by leaking out details? Those questions are raised by the newspaper’s role:
The newspaper has acted as a mouthpiece for China’s Communist Party. The report may be a sign of the struggle between those in the party who want to remain engaged with North Korea and those who would like to distance themselves from Kim’s regime.
The youngest son of Kim Jong Il succeeded his late father in 2011, becoming the third member of his family to rule the unpredictable and reclusive communist state.
Jang was seen by many experts as a regent behind North Korea’s Kim dynasty and a key connection between the hermit nation and its ally China.
This was how it was announced that the “counter revolutionary” uncle was arrested:
Kim Jong Un later lauded the purge of his uncle. CNN:
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un…praised the recent purge of his uncle and former protector, saying it brought greater unity within the secretive, nuclear-armed state.
“In the seething period of the effort for building a thriving country last year, we took the resolute measure of removing the factionalists lurking in the Party,” Kim said in a New Year’s address, referring to the North’s ruling Workers’ Party of Korea.
“As our Party detected and purged the anti-Party, counterrevolutionary factionalists at an opportune time and with a correct decision, the Party and revolutionary ranks were further consolidated and our single-hearted unity was solidified to the maximum,” Kim said, according to the text of the speech carried by North Korean state media.
The purged uncle, Jang Song Thaek, was considered instrumental in Kim’s rise to power in December 2011 and, until recently, was regarded as the second-most powerful figure in North Korea. But the young leader turned his back on Jang in spectacular fashion late last year, having him executed last month on charges he tried to overthrow the government.
The death of Jang, who was married to Kim’s paternal aunt, was announced in an unusually public declaration by the reclusive regime. Purges and executions of senior officials are believed to have taken place under the North’s previous leaders, Kim’s father and grandfather, but without such public fanfare.
North Korean state media attacked Jang’s character and detailed an extensive list of his alleged crimes, describing him as “despicable human scum.”
This punishment, the Hong Kong newspaper reportedly said, is called ‘quan jue’, or execution by dogs, and is given to the most detested members of North Korean society. Some reports say over a hundred officials were offered up to the starving hunting dogs. Others say a smaller number.
But in terms of “branding” it feeds to the notion that North Korean is a particularly rogue nation, verging on Nazi-like brutality to how it treats its enemies. In August there were report that Kim had executed an old girl friend — for reportedly making a sex tape — in a most-assuredly breaking-up-is-hard-to-do moment:
Unconfirmed reports claim the ex-girlfriend of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was executed by firing squad along with 11 others, after the group allegedly made and sold a sex tape.
Hyon Song Wol, a singer in North Korea’s famed Unhasu Orchestra, was killed by machine gun along with 11 other members of the orchestra and the Wangjaesan Light Music Band, another popular state-run music group in North Korea, according to a report in The Chosun Ilbo, South Korea’s largest daily newspaper.
The report, which cites an anonymous source in China, says the group was arrested Aug. 17 for filming and selling a pornographic video featuring themselves. The clip reportedly found its way across the border to China. Their families were forced to watch the execution, which took place three days later, and were then sent to the country’s notorious prison camps, the source said.
Hyon was a famous performer whose fame peaked around 2005 with the popular song “Excellent Horse-Like Lady.” She is said to have dated Kim in the early 2000’s, after the young leader returned from boarding school in Switzerland. But she disappeared from the public eye around 2006, near the time Kim Jong Il began grooming his son to be Supreme Leader. (Kim Jong Il reportedly disapproved of the relationship and ordered Hyon to leave the orchestra to keep her away from his son.)
Shortly after the breakup, Hyon is said to have married an officer in the North Korean army and given birth to his son. But after Kim Jong Il’s death in late 2011, rumors spread among Pyongyang’s military elite that Kim and Hyon had rekindled their romance.
Should these reports be believed?
I veer on the side of yes.
While there is a chance the could be politically motivated and false, North Korea is considered one of the world’s most closed and brutal societies — the term “iron curtain” applies to it — and it controls news as much as it can. The fact these reports come from Chinese newspapers that are believed to have good sources within the regime suggest that some sources are trying to make the truth be known about what is going on in North Korea (there are websites that regularly try to do that) — a country ruled by someone who is most decidedly not a good ex or a good nephew.
White House press secretary Jay Carney last month on the regime’s brutality when it had been announced that Jang Song Thaek had been executed:
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UPDATE: Doug Mataconis:
As noted it’s hard to judge the veracity of this report as it could very well be part of an internal struggle among China’s leadership about how to deal with recent developments in the China’s increasingly bizarre neighbor. If it’s true, though, then it reveals a level of cruelty in Kim that rivals some of the worst dictators in recent history even though it’s hard to feel sorry for Jang given that he was at the right hand of the Kim family for decades as they committed numerous human rights violations in the name of consolidating their dictatorial power.
graphic via shutterstock.com
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.