Does story on execution by 120 hounds have world barking up wrong tree?
LONDON – Did North Korea’s Kim Jong-un really kill his uncle Jang Song Thaek with 120 starving dogs? We thought Kim did it with a gun, but maybe not . . .
The thing about North Korea is that it’s so mad, so gruesome that it’s difficult not to believe any tall story.
Kim Jong-un ate a baby? The army uses kittens for target practice? Kim Jong-il’s reanimated corpse stalks the countryside scaring children? It all seems possible. Which is why this story is so tempting. The Singaporean Straits Times reports that Chinese media reports that Kim’s uncle was executed not by a firing squad but by a pack of hungry dogs.
According to the report, unlike previous executions of political prisoners which were carried out by firing squads with machine guns, Jang, along with his five closest aides, was stripped naked and thrown into a cage. Then 120 starving hounds were allowed to prey on them until they were completely eaten up. This is called “quan jue”, or execution by dogs.
The report said the entire process lasted for an hour, with Kim Jong-un, the supreme leader in North Korea, supervising it along with 300 senior officials.
How did Kim “supervise” it exactly? By handing out popcorn?
Western news outlets are slowly picking up the story but I’d urge caution. North Korean media have made no reference to starved dogs, including in Kim’s New Year’s message – even though the chubby prince did describe his uncle as “filth”. Moreover, why were 120 hounds used when half a dozen would do? And why the audience of 300? It’s all a bit like James Bond.
The source is questionable, too. If the Chinese knew about how Kim’s uncle died, why didn’t they talk about it sooner and why did the story only leak out through a Hong Kong news outlet?
The incident was first reported by the Wen Wei Po newspaper on December 12, yet it’s only now that The Straits Times has commented upon it – and only now that the Western media have started to take notice.
The Straits Times is a respectable and widely read publication, but it’s often been accused of being the mouthpiece of Singapore’s ruling party and is staunchly anti-communist – so political bias is possible.
Finally, we can’t dismiss the possibility that China itself has fabricated, or at least encouraged, the story to send a message to Pyongyang.
Kim’s uncle was the architect of closer economic ties between the China and North Korea and there is thought to be a lot of anger about his death.
My caution comes from bitter experience. A few months ago, I was one of many writers who fell for the claim that North Korean propaganda had told its people hungry Americans eat snow to survive.
That turned out to be a fraud. But the problem with Kim’s crazy “paradise” is that it’s so thoroughly evil that it seems capable of any act of inhumanity. Including even this.