Kim purges leading military aides
SOUTH KOREA: One of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s top aides has been purged in a power struggle between civilian party chiefs and the Korean People’s Army.
Hwang Pyong-so, head of the army’s powerful General Political Bureau, and his deputy have been punished for an ‘‘impure attitude’’ toward the ruling Korean Workers’ Party, according to South Korea’s spy agency.
If the sackings are confirmed, they will represent the latest in a purge of senior officials by Kim.
The exact fate of Hwang and Kim Won-hong is not clear, but the language used by the National Intelligence Service (NIS), which briefed South Korean MPs yesterday, suggests that they have been demoted or sent for re-education rather than executed.
The ‘‘inspection’’ of the General Political Bureau is being carried out by Choe Ryong-hae, a senior aide to Kim who was himself purged only to later make a comeback.
It appears to be an act of revenge on those who brought about Choe’s fall from favour two years ago, and a reassertion of power by party supremos over their rivals in the army.
Kim has seen off scores of cadres, of high and lower rank, since succeeding his father, Kim Jong-il, in 2011.
Choe Yong-gon, a deputy prime minister, is believed to have been shot in May 2015 after opposing Kim’s forestry policies. The previous month, Hyon Yong-chol, the defence minister, was said to have been shot to pieces with an antiaircraft gun for crimes including falling asleep in the supreme leader’s presence. In 2013, Kim had his uncle, Chang Sung-thaek, killed after he allegedly confessed to a coup plot.
Other senior figures have suffered lesser punishments from which they have been allowed to return.
Hwang used to be regarded as Kim’s No 2. Kim Won-hong was sacked as minister of state security in January for alleged abuse of power, having just returned to high office.
Meanwhile, North Korea has reportedly banned gatherings that involve drinking alcohol and singing, in new measures designed to mitigate the impact of international sanctions over the country’s missile tests and nuclear programme.
‘‘[Pyongyang] has devised a system whereby party organs report people’s economic hardships on a daily basis, and it has banned any gatherings related to drinking, singing and other entertainment,’’ South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported the NIS as saying during the closed-door briefing to MPs.
The crackdown follows the surprise cancellation of the popular Pyongyang Beer Festival in July, during a period of sustained drought.
North Koreans have also been forbidden from expressing gratitude to their mothers on Mothers’ Day, out of concern that it detracts from their enforced adulation of Kim Jong-un, the Daily NK website reported.