The fear and the unknown
Nuclear scare made worse because world can’t tell if dictator is serious
Like his father Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s new young leader Kim Jong Un is viewed by much of the outside world with a mix of incomprehension, ridicule and fear.
Early last month, people were shaking their heads in bemusement at photos of Kim partying with flamboyant former NBA star Dennis Rodman in Pyongyang after they watched a basketball game together.
One month later, they’re wondering if he might be on the brink of tipping the Korean peninsula into a catastrophic conflict.
The current crisis, with its nuclear threats and Kim’s lurid exhortations to his troops to ‘‘ break the waists of the crazy enemies and totally cut their windpipes’’ has placed the young leader in the global spotlight.
But while more of a public personality than his introverted father ever was, Kim remains an enigmatic figure, especially on a personal level.
He’s young, but it’s not known how young — reports range from 28 to 30. He has a stylish, attractive wife, but how many children he has or what sex they are is a mystery.
His apparent affection for amusement parks and Disney characters sits oddly with his position as supreme commander of the world’s fifthlargest army with an emerging nuclear arsenal.
An often- used media qualifier, and one that has taken on an ominous ring in recent weeks as tensions between Pyongyang, Seoul and Washington have soared, is ‘‘ inexperienced’’.
While Kim Jong Il was well groomed before taking over from his father — founding leader Kim Il Sung — Kim Jong Un had barely warmed the successor’s chair when his father died in December 2011.
And after less than 16 months in the job, he has taken his country to the brink of conflict in the first crisis he has faced.
For Alexandre Mansourov, a North Korea expert and visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins University, Kim’s personal inexperience is worryingly matched by the outside world’s inexperience in dealing with him
‘‘ I think we still don’t know what he’s doing, to be honest,’’ Mansourov said.
‘‘ Although Kim Jong Il practised brinkmanship all the time, there was a record of him stepping back from the brink. We knew basically where his limits were, where his brakes were and what buttons to push to keep him behaving.
‘‘ With his son, we don’t have a track record yet. We don’t know what his limits are, how far we can push him or whether he has any brakes.’’
In South Korea, which has more experience than anyone of North Korea’s mercurial behaviour, analysts say that what others see as reckless ‘‘ adventurism’’ on Kim’s part may be well- calibrated pragmatism.
‘‘ Kim only had a short time to prepare for leadership, which meant he had to move all the faster and more aggressively when it came his way, to secure his control on the power elite,’’ said Chang Yong Seok, senior researcher at the Institute for Peace and Unification at Seoul National University.
‘‘ It’s not so unusual. Kim Jong Il was still solidifying his status as successor when he declared a semi state of war at the height of the first crisis over the North’s nuclear programme in 1993- 94.’’
Because the inner workings of North Korea’s regime are so opaque, there have inevitably been questions as to whether Kim is really in charge — or is just a puppet manipulated by a coterie of top generals and officials.
Yang Moo Jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, dismisses such speculation.
‘‘ I believe he has shown himself to be in full control of the party and the military,’’ Yang said, pointing to Kim’s ‘‘ resolute’’ and even ruthless purge of top officials after he came to power.
‘‘ It’s true that he’s surrounded by a group of experienced mentors, but that doesn’t make him weak. He’s making the decisions on important state affairs. The system has been always like that.’’
Where, then, i s he taking the country?
Kim has followed his father’s playbook of engineering a crisis, then sharply driving up the stakes to a level where a skittish international community offers concessions to lower tensions.
But it’s a worn playbook, and this time a dry- eyed and unblinking United States and South Korea have chosen to stare Pyongyang down.
Daniel Pinkston, a North Korea expert with the International Crisis Group, suggests Kim is waiting for joint South Korea- United States military drills to conclude at the end of this month.
‘‘ It’s important to understand that a lot of what we see and hear — the photos of Kim hunkered with his generals in a war room, the apparently irrational threats — are largely meant for a domestic audience,’’ Pinkston said.
The rhetoric from Pyongyang was largely couched in the language of deterrence, with Kim portrayed as the leader standing between the North Korean people and a US invasion.
‘‘ When the drills end, the message will be: ‘ Look. They were going to invade us with their B- 52s and their stealth bombers, but they didn’t because of our nuclear deterrent and, above all, because of our saviour, the great marshal Kim Jong Un’,’’ Pinkston said.
‘‘ That’s how it works.’’
by Dan De Luce The United States slammed North Korea’s belligerence and pressed China to rein in its ally yesterday, as US officials downplayed a chilling spy agency report that Pyongyang has a nuclear- armed missile.
The alarming assessment of the North’s nuclear capabilities, revealed by a US politician at a congressional hearing, came as tensions on the Korean peninsula mounted over an expected Pyongyang.
A senior official travelling with US Secretary of State John Kerry to Seoul, where he was due yesterday, again pressed China to encourage its wayward ally to stop its destabilising nuclear activities and threats to the region.
The North’s February nuclear test and its fury over subsequent United Nations sanctions, are at the core of the current crisis that has resulted in Pyongyang threatening nuclear strikes against the US and South Korea.
President Barack Obama said ‘‘ nobody wants to see a conflict’’, but emphasised that the US was ready to take ‘‘ all necessary steps to protect its people’’ and defend its allies in the re-
missile
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by gion. ‘‘ We both agree that now is the time for North Korea to end the kind of belligerent approach that they’ve been taking,’’ Obama said after talks in the Oval Office with UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon.
‘‘ It’s important for North Korea, like every other country in the world, to observe basic rules and norms.’’
The top US official travelling with Kerry, who will also visit Beijing and Tokyo during his trip to Asia, said China had a key role to play in the crisis.
‘‘ China has a huge stake in stability, and the continued North Korean pursuit of a nuclear- armed missile capability is the enemy of stability,’’ the official said.
In Washington, Congressman Doug Lamborn, reading from an unclassified portion of a Defence Intelligence Agency report, said Pyongyang could be capable of launching a nuclear warhead, albeit an unpredictable one.
‘‘ DIA assesses with moderate confidence the North currently has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles,’’ said the report, according to the Republican. ‘‘ However, the reliability will be low.’’
But the Pentagon and the director of national intelligence quickly threw cold water on the assessment.
Pentagon spokesman George Little said it would be ‘‘ inaccurate’’ to suggest North Korea had demonstrated the capabilities referenced by Lamborn — a remark echoed by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.
The leaked intelligence marked the first time the US Government has suggested North Korea may have succeeded in miniaturising a nuclear device — a potentially game- changing scenario for the strategic balance in East Asia.
South Korea was sceptical, with Defence Ministry spokesman Kim Min Seok saying it was ‘‘ still doubtful’’ that the North had produced a warhead small enough to fit on a missile.
Intelligence officials in Seoul say the North has two mid- range missiles ready for imminent launch from its east coast, and South Korea and Japan are on heightened alert for any test.
Pyongyang has not officially announced a launch, but a state body in charge of inter- Korean exchanges stressed on Thursday that ‘‘ powerful strike means’’ had been put in place.
Observers believe a launch is most likely in the build- up to the April 15 birthday of late founder Kim Il Sung, for which celebrations are already well under way in Pyongyang.
The mid- range missiles mobilised by the North are reported to be untested Musudan models with an estimated range of up to 4000km.
That would cover any target in South Korea and Japan, and possibly even US military bases on the Pacific island of Guam.
Yonhap news agency quoted military sources as saying the North was moving multiple missiles around in an apparent bid to confuse outside intelligence gatherers about its intentions. Papua New Guinea must tackle the scourge of sorcery- related murder, the United Nations said yesterday, after an elderly woman was beheaded in the Pacific nation.
The UN demanded an end to extrajudicial killings linked to accusations of sorcery and renewed calls for the Government to repeal the Sorcery Act 1971, introduced to aid the passage of witchcraft cases through the courts.
While the act criminalised the practice of sorcery, human rights groups say it has also led to an increase in false accusations by people against their enemies and has given the notion of sorcery a legitimacy it would not otherwise have had.
‘‘ The provision of protection to victims of sorcery- related violence must also be increased as a matter of urgency,’’ the UN said in a statement from Port Moresby.
‘‘ The UN is deeply disturbed with the increasing reports of violence, torture and murder of persons accused of practising sorcery around the country.
‘‘ These vigilante killings constitute murder and must not be treated with impunity,’’ it added, relating ‘‘ another horrific case’’ this week.
In the Bana district of South Bougainville two women accused of sorcery were kidnapped and tortured before one was beheaded.
‘‘ This case adds to the increase of reports of extra- judicial torture and killings of both men and women, especially elderly women, accused of sorcery,’’ it said. ‘‘ These reports raise grave concern that accusations of sorcery are used to justify arbitrary and inhumane acts of violence.’’
Local media had initially reported that both women were beheaded on Bougainville Island, where the novel Mister Pip by New Zealand author Lloyd Jones is set.
Media noted that police were present but were outnumbered by an angry mob and could do nothing to prevent the grisly deaths.
The women were tortured for three days, suffering knife and axe wounds, reports said. This was just days after six women accused of sorcery were reportedly tortured with hot irons in an Easter ‘‘ sacrifice’’ in the Southern Highlands.
Last month, a woman accused of sorcery was stripped naked and burned to death by a mob.
There is a widespread belief in sorcery in PNG and many people do not accept natural causes as an explanation for misfortune and death.
There have been several other cases of witchcraft and cannibalism in PNG in recent years, with a man reportedly found eating his newborn son during a sorcery initiation ceremony in 2011.